Freakonomics by Levitt and Dunber

1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic by 5 people | Log in to rate

Ranked #20,162 in Business, #251,893 overall

Why I Love This Book...

You could easily dismiss Freakonomics as just another interesting but unimportant or worse yet unremarkable book filled with pop-economic observations by a media-popular economist and writer with little more to offer than a pedigreed PhD and an irresistible writer's voice.

A quick review of the table of contents reveals a treatment of banal subjects ranging from cheating teachers and Sumo wrestlers to mama's boy drug dealers and baby names.

"Light-weight stuff this is", you might be thinking; not worth serious consideration.

You could easily dismiss this work as little more than pool-side fare but you would be wrong.

The foundation of Freakonomics' value lies in how it demonstrates five fundamental ideas.

-         Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life.

-         Conventional Wisdom is often wrong.

-         Dramatic effects often have distant, even subtle causes.

-         Experts use their informational advantage to serve their own advantage.

-         Knowing what to measures and how to measure it makes a complicated world less so.

By applying the tools of Economics to some-what pointless questions, Freakonomics provides a new way of viewing the world.  It is important because it demonstrates a different way to think about questions that are not easy to answer.

In today's world, where the easy answers are commodity answers, available to anyone, being able to think about and answer difficult questions in a new way is the difference between success and failure.  Freakonomics is important because it provides a glimpse into this reality.  Besides, it is a wonderful read from a set of intelligent writers with an irresistible voice.

Great Stuff on Amazon 

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Amazon Price: (as of 12/26/2009) Buy Now

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

Amazon Price: $10.04 (as of 12/26/2009) Buy Now

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

Amazon Price: $17.16 (as of 12/26/2009) Buy Now

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

Amazon Price: $33.35 (as of 12/26/2009) Buy Now

Freakonimics at the New York Times 

Loading Fetching RSS feed... please stand by

The Leadership Epidemic 

Why Most Leadership Sucks, Including Yours...

Loading Fetching RSS feed... please stand by

It's Just Too Good for One Entry 

Check out these other lenses and blogs...

The Leadership Epidemic Blog
John W. McKenna and his thoughts at The Leadership Epidemic.
Join the Conversation today.

Freakonomics at the NY Times
Levitt and Dubner share their latest thoughts at the New York Times.

Blog Posts from Google 

Can you believe it? People are blogging about Freakonomics.

So why do people do what they do?
These guys ? in their first book, ?Freakonomics? ? gave me the answers to questions I never...
The books you said you read
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (2005). Now that was fun! Inf...
Black-Market Breast Milk
By FREAKONOMICS Australian mothers pay up to $1000 for it on the Internet due to the country's s...
The trouble with contrarianism
This naive contrarianism lets you pose outside the system, meanwhile keeping good company like Warre...

Everyone Loves A Little Feedback 

If you don't like the review, at least say why...

submit

by John_W_McKenna

I have spent the last 19 years learing how to fail.  While surviving this ordeal, I have become somewhat of an expert in operational measurement...

(more)

Explore related pages

Related Topics

Create a Lens!