Book Reviews: The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Gr

The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers - Author: Robert Heilbroner.
Starting with Adam Smith, and then chronologically discussing the various great economists, parts of the this book were very enjoyable. In particularly, the genius, eccentricities, and stories about the economists were the most entertaining, all the while the reader is learning history including the formation and evolutions of economic thought. Despite the sometimes interesting stories, however, the book is as one might guess a bit of a struggle to get through. Some factors: the nature of the book is a bit didactic, since it jumps from person to person, sometimes causing me to feel jarred away from a character just as I'm getting more interested; the author has an excellent vocabulary, far superior to mine which is mediocre at best, and I found myself constantly trying to figure out the meaning of words from their context or looking them up, thus slowing me down a lot; finally, it ends poorly, in my opinion. The last chapter was a major disappointment for me. But despite all these drawbacks, I still recommend the book, since it's extremely education, a few difficult vocabulary words never hurt anybody, and many of the stories are very interesting.