 |   Author : Howard J. Sherman Edition : 7 Number of Pages : 742 Publisher : M.E. Sharpe List Price: Our Price: $61.85 You Save: $28.1 (32%) Used Price : $59.82 |
Product Description
This classic text offers a broader intellectual foundation than traditional principles textbooks. It introduces students to both traditional economic views and their progressive critique. Revised, expanded, and updated for this new edition, the text puts the study of microeconomics, macroeconomics, and globalization in their historical context. While covering the same topics as a traditional text, it also offers a richer discussion of economic history and the history of economic thought, including the ideas of Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, and John Maynard Keynes. This allows students to see economics as a way of understanding the world - as a lens for social analysis - rather than, as immutable truth or ideal to which the world should be molded.This completely revised edition incorporates new chapters on microeconomics and macroeconomics, as well as more graphs to enhance the theoretical presentations. Unlike the previous editions, it includes many pedagogical tools to encourage student participation and learning. Each of the 56 chapters opens with Learning Objectives, and key terms appear in boldface within the text and are listed at the end of each chapter. Other end-of-chapter material includes Summary of Major Points, Analytical Questions, and References. An online Instructor's Manual is available to professors who adopt the text.SimilarProduct
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Customer reviews
An important text needed more than ever 
by .. Dom ()
This book is, and has been over many years, an important text for students and others interested in a broader and more relevant introduction to economics. In particular, it provides a critical analysis of the orthodox economic theory that still dominates and obscures other views within our education systems.
In a world where the weaknesses in current economic systems and policy are becoming more stark -and have a serious detrimental effect on the lives of large numbers of people- it is important that this authoritative and accessible introduction is available.
Heterodox economics text 
by .. Amazon reviewer (Colorado USA)
If you like progressive economics, this book is for you. You can decide for yourself whether 'progressive' is a synonym for liberal or socialist or communist. The authors seem to style themselves as radical or heterodox economists.
The authors define capitalism as "an economic system based on production for markets in which the ownership of the means of production -- land, buildings, and equipment -- is in the hands of a small group of individuals called capitalists." So rather than rationalizing production, directed toward maximizing efficiency and productivity,
this book views capitalism as an engine of environmental pollution and oppression,both racist and sexist. The authors appear to believe that inequality, not freedom, is the essential feature of free market capitalism. Apparently the solution to all the ills of the free enterprise system can be found in chapter 25 (hint: employee co-ops).
Although supposedly an economics text book, it is really a liberal political editorial masquerading as economics. The authors believe that the main purpose of economics is to eliminate unemployment and poverty while no mention is made of increasing economic freedom. Property is theft, not the source of all freedom according to this textbook. All companies are large and greedy and evil. Governments are of course benign. No mention is made that the federal government owns 35% of the land in the US western US (430 million acres). Take a look at some of the below to see whether you think it belongs in an economics book:
Page 8: Primitive societies have no air forces.
Page 182: Vietnam War was about people trying to free themselves from US colonialism.
Page 242: The power of right-wing groups backed by those with money and power block women and African-Americans from achieving greater economic equality.
page 265: "Repression is not merely a historical oddity but exists at present in the context of the Iraq War. The Bush administration claims the right to eavesdrop on any phone or e-mail conversation in the United States and abroad. The Bush administration claims the right to hold without trial anyone designated an 'enemy combatant,' whether foriegn citizen or American citizen. The Bush administration claims the right to use torture to extract information." (Not only is it 8th grade baby talk, it is full of falsehood, but in any case why the heck is it in an economic text?)
Fox News ia criticized on page 266, but not CNN, MSNBC, or the Comedy Channel as a source of news.
page 426: Gas crisis of 1973 was planned. Also, faith that capitalism results in efficient production is "a part of the general folklore of our culture by which the status quo of capitalism is ideologically maintained."
Inequality of health care is discussed on page 267.
Sonic booms as a form of pollution as well as global warming due to capitalism are on page 245.
Rather than provide an objective, balanced perspective, the authors demonize traditional economic views or create phony 'neo-classical consverative' positions which they present simplistically and then knock down. Over and over the theme is corporate giants and wealthy = bad (at least the conservative ones), and the media is supposedly controlled by conservatives (LOL).
A curious story is told on page 270 about 'Private Jones' and how he had to take a loyalty oath during the era of McCarthism. see Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol. 38, No. 4, 519-538 (2006)
Apparently it is the reason one of the authors, Howard Sherman, became a radical economist. (One wonders, is Sherman "Private Jones"?)