Freakonomics: Un economista politicamente incorrecto explora el lado oculta de lo que nos afecta by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Freakonomics: Un economista politicamente incorrecto explora el lado oculta de lo que nos afecta
Book Review: Provocative
Summary: 5 Stars
Forget the thought of some boring, philosophical economist writing a book. Rather than a crusty professor, these guys are interesting and take a practical look at real-world issues, like whether reading to children will make them better students. I'm not sure there is one major point or grand theory to this book; it's just a fun exploration. While some might find the book flippant, there is a serious side to this the book that is hard to deny, even when you're having fun reading it!I also recommend "The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book" which summarizes worldwide research with 500,000 people and includes an online test of your EQ
Book Review: The cult of genius
Summary: 3 Stars
This book would be a lot better if it adopted a more scientific tone. Currently it reads like a long Time magazine article. Furthermore I really wish they would stop trying to elevate Levitt into some kind of economic Stephen Hawkins. For some reason there are little biographical notes about Levitt "the maverick genius" at the beginning of each chapter which I find intensely annoying.Interesting ideas but less of the bigging up please.
Book Review: The hidden side of the "Unexpected Publishing Phenomenon"
Summary: 3 Stars
Hmmm. A very *interesting* (in the sense of the Middle Eastern curse) kettle of fish.I'm not sure what co-author Dubner's role is here - either to act as an alter ego for Levitt, allowing reproduction of fawning extracts from various newspaper articles written about Levitt throughout the book (as sole author Levitt wouldn't be able to get away with this without heaping hubris on his head), or perhaps to take the material he had from his original article and pad it out into a volume just fat enough (and no more) to justify publication as a hard-back, in which case Levitt had pretty much nothing to do with this book at all. I suspect a bit of both.
Most of the few points made in this book are, at best, only moderately interesting, and there are very few of them: Freakonomics doesn't even remotely live up to its billing, managing only to explore the hidden side of about five completely discrete, and only moderately uninteresting, topics (statistical evidence that there's cheating in Sumo Wrestling, anyone?) Indeed, the sumo cheating data wasn't especially compelling: it seems to me there is an entirely innocent explanation for wrestlers who have already "qualified" losing an abnormally large number of bouts to statistically weaker fighters who have not: a "qualified" wrestler simply has no incentive to try particularly hard, where as a non-qualifying wrestler does. That analysis doesn't involve any collusion at all.
Elsewhere, Levitt's theorems only really work where there are huge quantities of data covering all conceivable aspects of the topic at hand. Most of the time, this just isn't the case, which is why the hidden side of everything remains, even to Levitt and Dubner, hidden.
In the cases where the data are available - like Baseball - others have done a much more compelling job of writing the economist's expose. For example, try Michael Lewis' outstanding Moneyball: the Art of Winning an Unfair Game.
Mean time, this one joins Lynne Truss's Eats Shoots & Leaves as the latest in a long line of quick-buck publishing pan-flashes.
Perhaps the money I've wasted on this book can be put, through this review, to some good use: saving yours.
Olly Buxton
Book Review: Nothing much
Summary: 3 Stars
It begins with interesting points but doesn't seem to explore everything. Easy and worth reading but do not expect it too high.Book Review: Interesting, and well worth a read
Summary: 5 Stars
What makes this book so good, is that it's author looks at every thing a different way, not bothering with the normal, and draws connections between things which you wouldn't really normally think about. Such as why do drug dealers still live with their mothers?
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