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A recommendation from Michael Roberts. An excellent overview of Neoclassical, Keynesian and Marxist economic theories. The authors are very conceptual, analytic and clear in their thinking. Suitable for anyone who's taken a first course in microeconomics.
The book is expensive but there's a PDF here which is free.
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This is the first Hilary Mantel book I've read and I'm impressed. On TV she comes across as a typical luvvy, very free with her de haut en bas opinions, but this 800 page monster shows off her authorial strengths. She does superlatively well what writers are meant to do: immerse yourself in the inner lives and the times of your characters.
Her focus is on the main players: "Georges-Jacques Danton: zealous, energetic and debt-ridden. Maximilien Robespierre: small, diligent and terrified of violence. And Camille Desmoulins: a genius of rhetoric, charming and handsome, yet also erratic and untrustworthy." - as the Amazon description puts it.
My only criticism (I'm halfway through) is that she hasn't quite tied-in the real social dynamics with the detailed, diary-like events which afflict her characters. I've just got to the Champ de Mars massacre (17 July 1791 in Paris) but I had to go to the Wikipedia article to get the context and background.
Still, the French Revolution is a kind of pure laboratory of the dynamics, look and feel of a popular insurrection. Mantel's novel is like a virtual reality excursion into unfolding events. Brilliant. It occurs to me that it could easily be updated, reset in contemporary times and made into a TV series. A rather maxi-series. Could someone green-light this?
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