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| Rating |  |
| Type | Paperback |
| Release Date | 2009-08-25 |
| List Price | $15.99 |
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Categories |
| Textbook Buyback General Popular Culture Paperback Printed Books Dubner, Stephen J. Levitt, Steven D. |
Features |
- ISBN13: 9780060731335
- Condition: New
- Notes: BUY Together with CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Evaluate our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
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Description |
Which is extra dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? How much do parents really matter? These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He studies the riddles of usual life—from cheating and crime to parenting and sports—and reaches conclusions this turn conventional wisdom on its head. Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an prize-winning author and journalist. They set out to explore the inner workings of a crack gang, the truth concerning real estate agents, the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, and much extra. Throughout forceful storytelling and wry insight, they show this economics is, at root, the learn of incentives—how people get what they would like or want, particularly when other people would like or want the same thing. |
| Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences. The annual Nobel Award winner in this 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 this economics is dull, or this economists are concerned only together with finance itself, Steven D. Levitt will modify some minds. In Freakonomics (written together with Stephen J. Dubner), Levitt argues this many apparent mysteries of usual life don't want to be so mysterious: they could be illuminated and made even extra 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 this preempted the existence of some people who would be born to poverty and hardship. Elsewhere, by analyzing data gathered from inner-city Chicago drug-dealing gangs, Levitt outlines a corporate structure much like McDonald's, where the top bosses do excellent money while scores of underlings do something below minimum wage. And in a section this may alarm or ease worried parents, Levitt argues this parenting methods don't really matter much and this a backyard swimming pool is much extra 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 together 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 this too, and we're just not getting it yet. --John Moe |
Customer Reviews |
 Excellent service 2010-07-29 |
| By sissie |
| Have enjoyed the book and totally pleased about the rapid delivery from the time it was ordered. Who could ask for anything more? |
| Love at first read 2010-07-26 |
| By Janet Zablocki |
| I love this book with a passion. It is everything I've wanted in a book and more. |
 Brisk first half degenerates in second 2010-07-23 |
| By Loren Woirhaye (Easthampton, Massachusetts - Los Angeles, California) |
I know it's hard to write a whole book and make it interesting from start to finish so it isn't surprising that "Freakonomics", like many non-fiction books in the sort of niche it occupies, sort of degenerates and becomes less interesting as it goes along.
The best stuff is in the first half of the book. From Levitt's point-of-view this would make sense, because a small portion of people who purchase and begin to read a book even get past the first few chapters before losing interest. It is not always that a book doesn't get read because it is boring - it is because not too many people are genuinely interested in reading these days.
Thus, to put the best stuff first in such a book makes sense and that's what the authors have done. If I was the editor I might have lopped off the back of the book and told them to come up with some better material.
My opinion notwithstanding "Freakonomics" was a hit among people who like to think of themselves as up on their reading, hence the huge number of reviews here.
Nevertheless, the book is a lightweight. I paid $2 for it at a tag sale long after it was a hot topic. I read it pretty quick. It's breezy and lightweight reading - gives you some "ohh - that's interesting" moments without too much deep thought required... or none at all, really.
All in all a fun read and worth my time and two dollars, but not revelatory or particularly thought provoking. |
| Deep 2010-07-22 |
| By Jeffrey Louis (Chicago) |
| Read this if you have the time, and energy, to spend exploring the deeper side of how an economist looks at trends around us. |
| Great entertainment & food for thought 2010-07-17 |
Simply put, Freakamomics is a great read for the masses due to the following.
1. It's an easy-to-read book that doesn't claim to give all the answers. Rather, the authors provide explanations for common occurances with a specific point of view.
2. You may have an "aha" moment by reading through the ideas presented in the book.
That said, readers should always take the information presented to them with a grain of salt, as the authors take a data-centric approach to explaining the issues within, which may not necessarily provide one with a holistic explanation.
Fun note: I had been stuck in traffic on the 405 freeway and was tired of the radio, so I enabled my Kindle's speech-to-text feature and had it read me a chapter as I slowly progressed to my destination. It made the time pass much easier and was easy to follow along with, except when it got to a list of names. |
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