"If you read just one book about economics make it Andrew Leigh's clear insightful and
remarkable (and short) work." --Claudia Goldin recipient of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics
and Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University A sweeping engrossing history of
how economic forces have shaped the world--all in under 200 pages In How Economics Explains the
World Harvard-trained economist Andrew Leigh presents a new way to understand the human
story. From the dawn of agriculture to AI here is story of how ingenuity greed and desire
for betterment have to an astonishing degree determined our past present and future. This
small book indeed tells a big story. It is the story of capitalism - of how our market system
developed. It is the story of the discipline of economics and some of the key figures who
formed it. And it is the story of how economic forces have shaped world history. Why didn't
Africa colonize Europe instead of the other way around? What happened when countries erected
trade and immigration barriers in the 1930s? Why did the Allies win World War II? Why did
inequality in many advanced countries fall during the 1950s and 1960s? How did property rights
drive China's growth surge in the 1980s? How does climate change threaten our future
prosperity? You'll find answers to these questions and more in How Economics Explains the
World. "Can a short book survey the full history of something so vast and remain readable? To
find out read How Economics Explains the World by Andrew Leigh. In simple clear
language--and less than 200 pages--it does exactly what its title promises. ... Leigh canters
through the history of human progress pausing briefly to explain the economic forces and ideas
that drove it forward. ... Along the way readers meet the big economic thinkers who sought to
explain these forces. Both finance aficionados and mere novices will read savour and return to
this book." - The Economist "The Best New Books to Read about Finance"
