Economists at War

Reviews / Votes

The biographical focus on these economists before and during World War II provides insight into their similarities but also highlights their differences. While each chapter can stand alone as a mini-biography, Bollard takes care to show connections across the various economists, exposing a veritable web of intellectual influence and contemporary associations. * J. C. Hall, CHOICE * This is a nice book, containing a number of biographies with a specific focus. The author offers engaging portrayals of special men in unusual circumstances, while adding descriptions of the main economic ideas they developed or put in practice. In short, Bollard wrote a thoroughly enjoyable read, for economists, (economic) historians, and scholars of international relations alike. * Edwin van de Haar, OEconomia * A book that reads like a novel and which is very hard to put down until you have read the last page. Alan Bollard successfully proposes a book that is at the same time remarkably erudite and informative and for any public. * Ariane Dupont-Kieffer, History of Economic Ideas * The economists profiled in Alan Bollard's Economists at War were all cursed to live in interesting times... Bollard provides us with compelling models - both positive and negative - for how economists operated within and with governments to manage the rolling crises that built the twentieth century state... Economists at War offers us a diverse series of case studies in men who were thrust into an epic collective struggle by history and employed their energy and genius in that struggle imperfectly. This makes it an important work for economists trying to reimagine a world where there are collective solutions to collective problems. * Andrew Bossie, EH.Net *