“Promotional blurbs should be abolished. They are an incestuous and unmeritocratic literary ecosystem that often rewards connections over talent.” — Sean Manning, publisher, Simon & Schuster
Recently Simon & Schuster (which has published two of my books back in the 1980s) announced it will no longer publish blurbs on its book covers.
The Economist gives the two reasons why blurbs are misleading: They often exaggerate the virtues of the author’s work, or they commit the sin of omission by ignoring critical reviews.
The Internet Rates Books… and Professors!
Actually, the marketplace (the internet) provide a simple solution to this issue: Just go on Amazon, where you can read varying commentaries and ratings from one star to five. I do it all the time.
The Internet also provides a great way for students to see how good or bad a professor is. It’s called Rate My Professor. Here’s mine.
As you can see, 12 students gave me a “five” for “awesome,” while three gave me a “one” for “awful.”
Regarding books, Simon & Schuster might be shooting themselves in the foot. In my experience, despite exasperating hyperbole in the blurbs, booksellers do tend to carry more books if they are endorsed by famous people.
Why Not Publish Good and Bad Blurbs?
Normally, I highlight the positive reviews on the dustjacket of my books, or in my newsletter and trading services.
But what if I published both positive and negative reviews about a book. Would you buy it?
Let’s try an experiment. Here are both good and bad comments about one of my more popular works. After reading them, let’s see how many readers will still want to read my book.
Here are some positive reviews (with considerable exaggeration):
“This is the single best book on virtually all of those who have had a significant impact in economics. It’s a delight to read cover to cover.” — Richard Rahn, Washington Times
“It’s unputdownable!” — Marc Blaug, University of Amsterdam
“It’s fun to read on every page. I’ve read it three times and have recommended it to all my friends.” — John Mackey, Whole Foods Market
“When people ask for a history of economic thought, there is no contest: This book is hands-down the best. For sheer intellectual adventure, this book is unmatched.” — Jeffrey Tucker, Brownstone Institute
“His book brings history to life, with concise and incisive sketches of flesh and blood individuals. Read it!” — Steve Forbes
Now, Read the Complaints
On the other hand, you might have second thoughts after reading these criticisms:
“This book is both fascinating and infuriating. It is credulous or disingenuous on supply-side economics, naive on macroeconomics, almost silent on the sources of long-term growth and prone to judge every economist by whether he favors any kind of government intervention (bad) or none at all (good).” — Richard Cooper, Foreign Affairs
“Though the book reads well, I find myself compelled to issue a warning. The book is a disaster.” — David Gordon, The Mises Review (He dislikes my hero, Adam Smith, who is not an anarchist.)
“This book stinks! It’s a shallow polemic of an extreme laissez-faire proponent.”– One star review on Amazon (My book has been banned by Marxists.)
It turns out that all of the above reviews refer to my book “The Making of Modern Economics: The Lives and Ideas of the Great Thinkers,” now in its fourth edition published by Routledge.
Here’s my recommendation: After reading all the reviews above, plus those on Amazon, you decide! Here is a recent summary:
What the Book is All About
Here is a bold, new account of the lives and ideas of the great economists — Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman and many others — all written by a free-market economist. Presented in an entertaining and persuasive style, “The Making of Modern Economics” is a powerful story of economics, with dozens of anecdotes, illustrations and photographs of the great economic thinkers.
A Rarely-Told Story of High Drama
First and foremost, Professor Skousen tells the remarkable untold story of free-market capitalism’s long-running battle against Keynesianism, Marxism, socialism and other -isms. It is an account of high drama with a singular heroic figure, Adam Smith and his celebrated “system of natural liberty.” The running plot involves many unexpected twists and turns; sometimes our hero is left for dead, only to be resuscitated by his free-market friends; the story even has a surprise ending.
A Full-Scale Critique of All Major Doctrines
All previous histories tend to give a dry, disjointed and helter-skelter account of economists and their contradictory theories. But Skousen unifies the story of economics by ranking all major economic thinkers either for or against the invisible hand doctrine of Adam Smith. Thus, Marx, Veblen and Keynes are viewed as critics of Smith’s doctrine, while Marshall, Hayek and Friedman are seen as supporters.
Using this ranking system, “The Making of Modern Economics” offers a full-scale review and critique of every major school and their theories, including classical, Keynesian, monetary, Austrian, institutionalist and Marxist.
A Complete History
Skousen’s history is comprehensive. He makes a point of discussing all schools of economics and not just the ones he agrees with. Too many economists have omitted major characters from the history of economics, a practice bordering on intellectual dishonesty. Robert Heilbroner’s popular book, “The Worldly Philosophers”, for example, virtually ignores the laissez-faire French, Austrian and Chicago traditions. (His latest edition does not even mention Milton Friedman by name!)
Think of ‘The Making of Modern Economics’ as a contra-Heilbroner history.
It’s a perfect antidote to all those biased, inaccurate attacks on the free market and its proponents.
Skousen records the lives and ideas of important economists often ignored in other histories, such as Montesquieu, Ben Franklin, J. B. Say, Frederic Bastiat, Friedrich List, Herbert Spencer, Ludwig von Mises, Knut Wicksell, Philip Wicksteed, Max Weber, Irving Fisher, Roger Babson, Frederick Taylor, A. C. Pigou, Joan Robinson, Paul Sweezy, Paul Samuelson and Murray Rothbard.
Skousen’s book also restores the vital role of the Austrian and Swedish schools in the marginalist revolution and the development of monetary economics. It emphasizes the impact of other disciplines on economics, such as evolution, sociology and religion.
‘Tell-All’ Biographies
Skousen’s book brings history alive with exciting new insights into the lives of the great economists through in-depth biographies and the author’s own research, revealing an amazing tale of idle dreamers, academic scribblers, occasional quacks and madmen in authority.
“The Making of Modern Economics” does its best to entertain, with provocative sidebars, humorous anecdotes and even music selections reflecting the spirit of each major economist. Samples:
- Why Adam Smith burned his clothes… and then burned his papers.
- The “satanic verses” of the poet Karl Marx.
- Were Malthus, Ricardo, Marshall and Keynes anti-female?
- The infamous grading technique of Chicago’s Jacob Viner (he regularly flunked a third of his class).
- The sexual scandals of Karl Marx, Carl Menger, Joseph Schumpeter and Friedrich Hayek.
- The story behind Marx the phrenologist, Jevons the astrologer, Keynes the palm reader and Friedman the amateur handwriting analyst.
- Which famous economist is buried next to rock star Jim Morrison in Paris?
- How Darwin and Wallace discover their theory of evolution after reading Malthus.
- Why Malthus and the doomsdayers have been proven wrong about overpopulation and environmental crises.
- The strange case of David Ricardo: Why Schumpeter, Keynes, and Samuelson admired him — and deplored him.
- Why Malthus refused to have his portrait made until age 67.
- Why Hayek blames John Stuart Mill, a hero of classical liberalism, for popularizing socialism among intellectuals in the 19th century.
- The real origin of the epithet “dismal science,” and why critics are now calling economics the “imperial” science, with ever-increasing applications in law, finance, history and politics.
- How John Stuart Mill and the disciples of David Ricardo became hostage to the Marxists, and how Carl Menger and the Austrians revived the laissez-faire model of Adam Smith from oblivion.
- The inside story of three multi-millionaire economists — David Ricardo, Irving Fisher and John Maynard Keynes.
- The bizarre story of Jeremy Bentham: from democratic reformist to utilitarian fascist.
- The socialist origins of the American Economic Association and the London School of Economics.
- Veblen’s incredible prophecies about World War I and II.
- Thorstein Veblen versus Max Weber: Who had a better vision of capitalism?
- How Irving Fisher became an advisor to the fascist Mussolini.
- The little-known story of how the economics establishment in the West (including economists at Cambridge, Harvard and Yale) failed to forecast the 1929-32 economic collapse.
- How Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek were able to predict the 1929-33 crisis, yet failed to convince the world of their theories.
- How the 1929 crash served as a catalyst for Keynes’s “general theory.”
- How Keynes saved the world from Marxism in the 1930s.
- The truth about Keynes’s homosexuality and the rumor that his Cambridge colleague, A.C. Pigou, was a Soviet spy.
- Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — how a Keynesian statistic was invented by a Russian.
- How Irving Fisher’s misinterpretation of his quantity theory of money led to his losing a fortune on Wall Street, and how Milton Friedman avoided repeating Fisher’s blunder.
- Why Friedman and the Chicago school triumphed over Mises and the Austrian school in discrediting Keynesianism and restoring the Adam Smith model of market capitalism.
Fully Illustrated with Over 100 Photos, Portraits and Graphs
Finally, The Making of Modern Economics is the first fully illustrated history of economics, with over 100 charts, portraits and photographs, including a picture of…
…Keynes in bed (where he made his millions),
…Eugen Boehm-Bawerk in official regalia as finance minister of Austria,
…Alfred Marshall trying to hide his oversized left hand,
…the preserved body of Jeremy Bentham in London,
…the only known photograph of Irving Fisher smiling (before he lost millions in the stock market), and
…over 75 rare and unusual photos and portraits of famous economists.
How to Order at a Bargain Price
From the above, you can see why my history has gone through four editions and is published by a major academic publisher (Routledge).
Academic publishers are famous for charging high prices for their books. Routledge charges $67 for its paperback edition.
But by special arrangement, I buy copies in bulk and sell them at a substantial discount: The quality paperback edition is available for a special rate of ONLY $37 (45% off the $67 full price) with FREE SHIPPING in the United States. To get this discount, go to www.skousenbooks.com.
The hardback, Kindle and Audible editions are available on Amazon at Amazon.com: The Making of Modern Economics, Fourth Edition: The Lives and Ideas of The Great Thinkers (Audible Audio Edition): Mark Skousen, Robertson Dean, Blackstone Publishing: Audible Books & Originals.
The book is award-winning. It has won the Choice Book Award for Academic Excellence, and it was once ranked as the #2 Libertarian Book in Economics by the Ayn Rand Institute (behind Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson”).
Get your copy today and you decide!
You Nailed It!
“There’s much revenue in economy.” — Benjamin Franklin
Despite all the complaints about the Trump administration, one thing they deserve credit for is exposing the billions in waste, fraud and corruption at the highest level by past administrations in Washington.
Elon Musk has been given the green light in the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Earlier this week, he reported in the Oval Office that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) spent $59 million recently housing illegal immigrants at premier hotels in New York City. The acting director of FEMA has suspended all such payments as of February 9. President Trump says he wants to “shut down” FEMA.
DOGE also reported that Uncle Sam spent $8 million on Politico subscriptions and other biased Washington news outlets.
But the abuse doesn’t end there. It’s ubiquitous. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform held hearings yesterday on the enormous number of improper payments made by the federal government each year. The hearing is called “The War on Waste: Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments.”
According to data released by the Office of Management and Budget, during fiscal year 2024, federal agencies reported $161.5 billion in improper payments – money sent to the wrong entity, for the wrong amount or wrong reason.
It’s time we have transparency and accountability in government. Glad to see Trump and Musk leading the way.
