- Audio CD
- Publisher: William Morrow; Unabridged edition (Mar 31 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0060776137
- ISBN-13: 978-0060776138
- Product Dimensions: 14.7 x 13.2 x 2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 136 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #694,517 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.com
Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences. The annual Nobel Prize winner in that field never receives as much publicity as his or her compatriots in peace, literature, or physics. But if such slights are based on the notion that economics is dull, or that economists are concerned only with finance itself, Steven D. Levitt will change some minds. In Freakonomics (written with Stephen J. Dubner), Levitt argues that many apparent mysteries of everyday life don't need to be so mysterious: They could be illuminated and made even more fascinating by asking the right questions and drawing connections. For example, Levitt traces the drop in violent crime rates to a drop in violent criminals and, digging further, to the Roe v. Wade decision that preempted the existence of some people who would be born to poverty and hardship. Elsewhere, by analyzing data gathered from innercity Chicago drug-dealing gangs, Levitt outlines a corporate structure much like McDonald's, where the top bosses make great money while scores of underlings make something below minimum wage. And in a section that may alarm or relieve worried parents, Levitt argues that parenting methods don't really matter much and that a backyard swimming pool is much more dangerous than a gun. These enlightening chapters are separated by effusive passages from Dubner's 2003 profile of Levitt in The New York Times Magazine, which led to the book being written. In a book filled with bold logic, such back-patting veers Freakonomics, however briefly, away from what Levitt actually has to say. Although maybe there's a good economic reason for that too, and we're just not getting it yet. --John Moe
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner Answer The Amazon.com Significant Seven
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, author and co-author of this season's bestselling quirky hit, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, graciously answered the Amazon.com Significant Seven questions that we like to run by every author.
Levitt and Dubner answer the Amazon.com Significant Seven questions
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Though the idea of listening to an economics text may bring to mind nightmarish visions of incomprehensible facts, figures and graphs, this audiobook is refreshingly accessible and engrossing. Journalist Dubner reads with just the right mix of enthusiasm and awe, revealing juicy morsels of wisdom on everything from what sumo wrestlers and teachers have in common (a propensity to cheat) to whether parents can really push their kids to greatness by buying them Baby Einstein toys and enlisting them in numerous before- and after-school activities (not really). The only section that doesn't translate well to the format is the final one on naming conventions. The lists of "White Girl Names" and "Black Girl Names," and "Low-End" names and "High-End" names can be mind-numbing, though the text that breaks up these lists will intrigue. Overall, however, these unusual investigations by Levitt, the "rogue" of the subtitle, make for meaty—and entertaining—listening.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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First Sentence
Anyone living in the United States in the early 1990s and paying even a whisper of attention to the nightly news or a daily paper could be forgiven for having been scared out of his skin. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Anyone living in the United States in the early 1990s and paying even a whisper of attention to the nightly news or a daily paper could be forgiven for having been scared out of his skin. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
47 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting but /and Light,
By
This review is from: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side Of Everything (Hardcover)
Calling this a book on economics hasn't scared people away - with the book #3 on the Amazon.com listings and #5 here on .ca, people are clearly buying into the author's quirky insights into the world around us.Freakonomics is an interesting collection of observations, never conceding to any agenda whatsoever. It's entertaining, but never really takes you anywhere. Personally, I would have hoped that it would at least attempt to spur interest in economics and econometric methods, but in the end it reads more like an episode of Seinfeld - a book about, well, nothing. It's an easy read, achievable on a single rainy day, and certainly not challenging for the average reader with no economics background. But I would encourage folks who do pick it up to consider the usefulness of the correlation/causality distinction and the methods of analysis beyond the description here. Not many of you will pick up an economics or statistics text because of this, but maybe if there were more books like this which make it interesting and applicable in our daily lives, we would all have a better understanding and appreciation for our strange little world at large.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book gets me thrown out of parties,
By Barry Tighe "Barry Tighe - Author The Spawate... (Spawater, Britanicca) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Freakonomics (Revised Edition) (Hardcover)
Freakonomics gets me thrown out of a lot of parties. Now that I know what really makes the world turn I cannot resist butting in on folk's conversations and putting them right.
`Zero tolerance', someone will say, `that's what cut crime in New York'. `No it didn't', says I, `it was the 1973 legalisation of abortion that cut crime. Fewer young men means fewer young criminals.' A few dirty looks and off I go to another group. `My estate agent is marvellous; she sold my house in no time. A little under my asking price but she got me the best deal she could'. `No she didn't', I interrupt. `She sold your house below your asking price for a quick sale. She makes more money selling lots of houses cheaply than fewer houses for a fair price.' More unfriendly stares. Next group. `Drug dealers are all rich, living off the backs of their victims'. `Oh yeah? Says I, `Then why do most of them live with their moms?' And so on until they show me the door. Freakonomics has turned me into a know-all. It explains the real reasons things happen as opposed to the conventional thinking. Written in a style that tells you that you are among friends, Freakonomics leads you gently from a world of easy assumptions to a world of questioning. You will never be quite the same again. My only bicker is that it is too short. Are they writing a Freakonomics II? I do hope so. Maybe they can explain why know-alls get thrown out of parties.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Intelligent yet lacking,
By
This review is from: Freakonomics (Revised Edition) (Hardcover)
Steven Levitt is clearly a brilliant man. An intellectual that isn't afraid to rock the boat with some controversial yet well-thought ideas. The book identifies some very interesting trends and presents them in a straight-forward readable manner.
However, Levitt's ideas are not explored in enough detail to sufficiently enforce his arguments. It almost seems that the publishers have dumbed it down to the level of the ordinary person in order to sell more books. I haven't read the expanded edition, but I hope Levitt provides some of the background that is lacking in this edition.
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