Customer Reviews

A Student's Guide to Economics (Isi Guides to the Major Disciplines)

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The late Paul Heyne was one of this century's finest economics educators. His ECONOMIC WAY OF THINKING is justifiably renowned for being crystal clear, and his classroom instruction is famous.

This short book, published posthumously, is the best 100-page-or-less introduction to economics and the economic way of thinking that I've ever read. Possessing a poet's economy and skill with words, Heyne conveys not only the basic tenents of modern economics, but he goes a long way toward explaining their historical origins.

The reader also sees on display in this monograph Paul Heyne's truly deep insight to economics and its subject matter. Indeed, to explain economics as clearly, consisely, and beautifully as Heyne does requires a wisdom so profound that few economists ever come close to possessing it and the understanding that it makes possible. Paul Heyne possessed such wisdom and understanding in abundance.

Even professional economists will gain by reading this book -- despite its being accessible to almost any reader.

"A Student's Guide to Economics" by Paul Heyne is the first book in the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) series that I have encountered. On the basis of this one slim volume (64 pages total) I have just ordered the guides for several other subjects, because this one is impressive, and well worth the cost.

Heyne's eloquent summary of the people, basic concepts, and some main ideas that make up the historical and current body of economics is remarkable for being masterfully (yet conversationally) written, and artfully distilled. I will keep re-reading this book over and over because it bears very careful reading, though it is deceptively simple prose (and thankfully contains no mathematical formulas to wrestle with). The "big" ideas he presents as questions to be asked and problems to be solved in a market economy are thought-provoking, long after the book is put down.

As an introduction to economics this book would be a great (or even an essential) gift for a high school student or college freshman who truly wants to receive a modern education. But any adult who knows little about economics or economists and reads this book will be in a better position to understand more and ask more questions about what our teachers, media, and government are telling us (and what they're not). So I am also buying additional copies to give to my friends who wonder, "What IS the 'economic way of thinking' about current policies and events and why should we care?"

The book includes a bibliography for additional reading that would keep me busy for a year or more. A serious student interested in economics would salivate. Thanks to Paul Heyne, this book is definitely a winner.

This little book helped me understand economics much more than before.

. . . but it wasn't what I thought it was.

I thought it was a handbook for how to study economics for those who wanted a really good education in the field: what books to read, what order to read them in, what sites to follow, what math courses to take and in what order, what government and business reports you need to keep up with if you want to remain current.

Nothing of the kind! Instead, it's a summary of the major ideological shifts and controversies that have been happening in academic economics for the last 50 years or so. In other words, approaches to economics that you'll want to know a couple of things about if you're about to enter graduate school.

But most of it is obvious and will be gotten from even a garden-variety economics text for freshmen. Did you know, for example, that there is a big paradigmatic rift between Austrians and Keynesians?

Only about 50 pages, by the way. More of an esay.