ABSTRACT
As I see it, the recent flow of this popular literature comes in two waves. Reflecting the atmosphere of disciplinary complacency from the 1990s onwards, the first wave of these books is largely self-congratulatory in praising the capabilities and achievements of economics, portraying it as everybody’s universal social science (titles include Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life; Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything; The Logic of Life: Uncovering the NewEconomics of Everything; Discover Your Inner Economist; The Economic Naturalist: Why Economics Explains Almost Everything; Everlasting Light Bulbs: How Economics Illuminates the World; The Undercover Economist; More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics, etc.). Many of these books appeared on the eve of the financial crisis of 2008-2009.
