✳flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

Capital in the Twenty-first Century by Thomas Piketty – review | Business and finance books | The Guardian

theguardian.com · 2,122 words · saved by 1 readers

T his is a VIB – very important book. Nearly everyone agrees about that. But the reasons for its importance have changed in the months since it was published. At first it was important because it was a big book on a big subject: a book of grand ambition about inequality, written not by the latest "thinker" but a respected academic economist with real numbers to go with his theory. We hadn't had anything like that in ages. This was the "Piketty as rockstar" phase, when the book was an "improbable hit" and people wrote breathless articles about the modern successor to Marx who could crunch the numbers but also quote Balzac, The Simpsons and The West Wing. Writing a bestselling economics book is usually a good way to make other economists hate you. But at first even they heaped praise on Thomas Piketty for casting fresh light on inequality – an area where the official statistics are notoriously weak. Say what you like about the theory, the argument went, you had to thank him for the numbe

Grand ambition about inequality … Thomas Piketty. Photograph: Charles Platiau/Reuters Grand ambition about inequality … Thomas Piketty. Photograph: Charles Platiau/Reuters Business and finance books This article is more than 12 years old Review Capital in the Twenty-first Century by Thomas Piketty – review This article is more than 12 years old There has been an intense debate about this surprise bestseller. What is the upshot? Stephanie Flanders Thu 17 Jul 2014 02.30 EDT Share Prefer the Guardian on Google T his is a VIB – very important book. Nearly everyone agrees about that. But the reason

Explore this link on the map →

related reading