- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1594488665
- ISBN-13: 978-1594488665
- Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 16 x 2.9 cm
- Shipping Weight: 522 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #375,752 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
just for fun,
By
This review is from: False Economy (Hardcover)
For anyone teaching economic history or international political economy, this book will be a good source of funny little stories to keep students awake. While many of Beattie's stories make useful points, some seem to be there just for the sake of the telling. I still don't understand why the chapter on path dependence begins with the story of pandas who have failed to evolve and cats who have done so.
Beattie has done a lot of research and written a book that is a good read, but he tries just a little too hard to keep away from numbers and to appeal to some mythical general reader. Does anyone who might be reading this book really need to be told what the word "tariff" means? The two best chapters are the one on natural resources, which is really about economic development and which tells resource rich governments how they can make good use of their wealth (but is Beattie's solution the only one?) and the chapter on corruption, which makes a good attempt of explaining why some corrupt countries do well economically while others do not. The chapter headings bear but little resemblance to the contents of the chapters. The chapter entitled "Politics of development" is about trade, and the chapter entitled "path dependence" consists, for the most part, of an economic history of Russian followed by a history of the Indian caste system. Beattie seems to have rushed his manuscript to press. There are a number of minor proof reading errors and some outright mistakes. The Suez Canal opened in 1896, not 1869, and OPEC was founded in1960, not 1970. So if you do another edition, Mr. Beattie, fix it. Edelgard Mahant
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting, yet...,
By
This review is from: False Economy (Hardcover)
The author brings up several interesting case studies, with a great balance between interest and brevity; it was hard to put the book down. It particularly illuminated the powerful influence on government by established lobbies; frequently out of proportion to their economic importance, and the descriptions of resource curse cases was refreshing.
However, one cannot help but notice the authors pronounced bias as a liberal economist. The entire work assumes that economics is the only "true" essence of human behaviour; that we are homo economicus as a species. Things that run counter to the lassez-faire capitalist model are automatically labelled as "artificial". And all of this despite the crisis this system has caused in the past year, which he barely mentions. He also contradicts his entire thesis out of the starting gate: he describes Argentina as having chosen to pursue the path to an impoverished third world country, yet in his opening discussion on Argentina sounds like a strong argument for historical determinism. Worth the read - but read it with a grain of salt.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
not exactly for a general audience,
By
This review is from: False Economy (Hardcover)
[Cross-posted to LibraryThing and LivingSocial]
If this book were used to teach a course in economic history and each chapter could be explored in depth over the course of a semester, it would be fantastic. Unfortunately, it's marketed toward a general audience so if you're not an economics or a history buff, this book may leave you feeling a bit confused or overwhelmed with information. And no matter who you are, parts of it may bore you to tears. Beattie tells us up front that through his exploration of the world's economic history, he will show how it was the choices made by various leaders that led each country to its current economic fate, as opposed to just plain destiny. He says this repeatedly despite contradicting his own thesis several times in the histories he recounts, and does refer to some countries' bad luck. Each chapter focuses on a particular theme (e.g. natural resources, path dependence) and a particular question (e.g. why didn't Washington d.c. get the vote?), which make for a interesting set-up. And the beginning of each chapter actually is interesting; Beattie is good at creating a hook. The problem is that once he answers the title question a few pages in, the rest of the chapter goes into painstaking historical detail on the theme (and sometimes goes off on a marginally related tangent). Some of the information is interesting and I did learn quite a bit, but the writing was so dry and there was just so much information that my eyes glazed over after a while. The best chapters were the ones on natural resources, religion, and corruption. They were actually engaging from start to finish. Overall, there is a lot of good stuff presented here and it was worth the slog to learn what I did learn from it. But I would recommend it with caution: this book appears to be marketed to a general reader and I think that's somewhat misleading.
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