Hacker News Books

It is interesting that there is no non-fiction in the top 100.

Godel Escher Bach

Plagues and People by McNeil

Something by Jared Diamond

Braudel's Capitalism series

The Worldly Philosophers by Heilbronner
etc
etc

Maybe nonfiction is more dispersed but it is still interesting to have none in the top 100.

The description in the Worldly Philosophers is my main source: that in Das Kapital he flips between ranting and precise mathematical language quite sporadically.

It is my understanding that he was the first to predict economic cycles of boom and bust, too.

Along with the excellent recommendations here, I would add "The Worldly Philosophers" by Heilbroner (http://www.amazon.com/Worldly-Philosophers-Lives-Economic-Th...) for a slightly different angle. It covers a wide range of famous economists and describes the high points of their theories along with some biographical detail, in a very engaging style. It's the economics version of "Men Of Mathematics", which is also a fascinating book.

I encourage you to read it. Pick up a copy (or get one of the many electronic versions), and go through it a bit at a time.

The book is well organised, though Smith is Very Wordy. Realise that he's building an argument, based on a great deal of observations, conversation, correspondece, lectures, and study. He's not a perfect guide, but he's a good and early one.

He's also been tremendously mis-cast by a great many others, and reading Smith in his own words is very often an antidote to that.

I'm working my way through various economic works, in a bit of a hop-scotch. There are a few good histories of thought -- The Worldly Philosophers, by Heilbronner, was popular in my uni days (1980s). Backhouse's The Ordinary Business of Life is more comprehensive, though exceedingly dry.

I found Arnold Toynbee (the elder), Lectures on the Industrial Revolution, to be fascinating. I'm going through a bit of John Stuart Mill (both he and his father wrote economics texts), and want to work through Marshall and Keynes. I have a sense that the state of economic theory around the turn of / early 20th century was important.

For more recent theory -- I'm pretty disappointed in economics (it was my major field of study) -- but suggest a mainstream textbook as at least an anchor. Steve Keen, Herman Daly, Nicholaus Georgescu-Roegen, W. Brian Arthur, and the chap at Oxford University I can't think of right now (Eric? Nick?) are interesting. Ah: Erick Beinhocker.

http://www.worldcat.org/title/worldly-philosophers/oclc/9894...

http://www.worldcat.org/title/ordinary-business-of-life-a-hi...

https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/experts/ebeinhocker

Apologies for the late response, though I've been thinking this over.

I'll stand by my earlier comment: read the classic economists themselves, directly, if at all possible. Smith, Malthus, Ricardo, Marx, Mill (both John Stuart and David), Carlisle, Toynbee, Marshall.

You don't need to read all of them or the works in full, but each of these addresses at least in some depth and detail the question of goods and their pricing behaviours, in ways that are not generally addressed today.

There are overviews and histories of economic thought and its development which should be useful. I've read Heilbroner (The Worldly Philosophers) and Backhouse (The Ordinary Business of Life), both of which provide a broad overview. Ha-Joon Chang has Economics: The User's Guide, which is a pretty good overview of various schools of thought.

I'm particularly impressed currently by Steve Keen, whose most recent book is Debunking Economics. He's been developing his ideas at a rapid pace and to an extent has overrun what's in the book. He's good to watch though.

John Kenneth Galbraith tends generally to discuss economics more-or-less in the terms I've been mentioning here, with The Affluent Society and Age of Uncertainty probably being good starting points.

I'm not much impressed by and generally strongly discount most Libertarian thinking, though if you'd like a sense of what I consider to be bad/poor economic theory, Howard Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson and Murray Rothbard's Libertarian Manifesto might be considerations.

Hope that helps.

I just read "The Worldly Philosophers" by Robert Heilbroner and I can recommend that. I now have a tab with Marx's "Capital" open and I'm about half way through Joseph Schumpeter's "Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy."

For finance, reading the Market Wizards series by Jack Schwager is a great idea because you get really personal and in-depth insights into how successful traders think.

I also recently read "Commodity Conversations" by Jonathan Kingsman which is similar to Market Wizards, but tailored to commodities and I can recommend that as well.

"The Secrets of Economic Indicators" by Bernard Baumohl is also an interesting overview to macro indicators.

I have no idea what constitutes an undergrad level of economics education, I don't recall my economics class being nearly as stimulating as everything I've just listed.

Good luck!

If you want to get a picture and understanding of the development and history of economic thought I second this suggestion of the Worldly Philosophers. It is very readable. It won't help you at all with a job in finance, but it will make you a more informed citizen, and better able to understand 'how the world works.'

The Worldly Philosophers is my favorite. It will take you through economic history as told by its great philosophers and break down the differences between the schools of thought. It has been my trusted guide on economic theory for the last 15 years.

Here's a link on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Worldly-Philosophers-Economic-Thin...

Etymological nit pick:

Capitalism was defined by Marx. It is the political movement to give power to people with financial resources, and it's principal consequence is exploitation (in Marx' analysis, every penny of profit comes from underpayment to your workers. This analysis is a mathematical one, about as rigorous as any theory of economics is possible to be.)

I prefer the term Market Economics or Market Forces to describe the positive effect you mean, which was discovered and described much earlier by Adam Smith.

(If you would like to read a decent history of economic ideas, I recommend The Worldly Philosophers, which is a very good book.)

The Emperor's New Mind, by Roger Penrose

The Tao of Physics, by Fritjof Capra

Dancing Wu Li Masters, by Gary Zukav

The Naked Ape, by Desmond Morris

The Road to Serfdom, by Friedrich Hayek

The Worldly Philosophers, by Robert Heilbroner

The Story of Philosophy, by Will Durant

Grammatical Man, by Jeremy Campbell

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig

Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Greg Mankiw wrote years ago on his blog a good list of introductory high level econ books:

A student emails me asking for a summer reading list. Here are ten very different books I like that are fun enough that you would not be embarrassed (well, not too embarrassed) reading them at the beach:

Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom

Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers

Paul Krugman, Peddling Prosperity

Steven Landsburg, The Armchair Economist

P.J. O'Rourke, Eat the Rich

Burton Malkiel, A Random Walk Down Wall Street

Avinash Dixit and Barry Nalebuff, Thinking Strategically

Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics

John McMillan, Reinventing the Bazaar

William Breit and Barry T. Hirsch, Lives of the Laureates

I'd also recommend a good textbook, if you're a little more serious.

The Worldly Philosophers, by Robert Heilbroner - http://www.amazon.com/Worldly-Philosophers-Lives-Economic-Th...

I really like "The Worldly Philosophers" by Robert L. Heilbroner. I don't know if it's as focused on technology as you're looking for but it does a good job of showing how economics and economic theory evolved over time and the circumstances the people driving it were in that would have helped shape their thoughts.

It has a short chapter covering the time before "modern" economics and then covers many of the major economists from Adam Smith to Joseph Schumpeter.

As a start, take some economics courses, intro Micro and Macro. (Check https://www.coursetalk.com/ https://www.class-central.com/ )

Actually the first book I'd recommend would be The Worldly Philosophers, a readable history of economics

https://www.amazon.com/Worldly-Philosophers-Economic-Thinker...

A couple of more right-leaning books -
Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
https://www.amazon.com/Road-Serfdom-Fiftieth-Anniversary/dp/...

Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom
https://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Freedom-Anniversary-Milton...

Less right-leaning

The Marx-Engels Reader
https://www.amazon.com/Marx-Engels-Reader-Second-Karl-Marx/d...