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This
Book Is So Me
DIGG THIS
 Writing
this introduction is a labor of love for me. You know how women
sometimes say to each other "This dress is you!"?
Well, this book is me! This was the first book on economics
that just jumped out and grabbed me. I had read a few before, but
they were boring. Very boring. Did I mention boring? In sharp contrast,
Economics
in One Lesson grabbed me by the neck and never ever let
me go. I first read it in 1963. I don't know how many times I have
reread it since then. Maybe, a half-dozen times in its entirety,
and scores of times, partially, since I always use it whenever I
teach introductory economics courses.
I am still
amazed at its freshness. Although the first edition appeared in
1946, apart from a mere few words in it (for example, it holds up
to ridicule the economic theories of Eleanor Roosevelt, about which
more below) its chapter headings appear as if they were ripped from
today's headlines. Unless I greatly miss my guess, this will still
be true another 60 years from now, namely in 2068. Talk about a
book for the ages. Other books on Austrian economics, too, are classics,
and will be read as long as man is still interested in the subject.
Mises's Human
Action and Rothbard's Man,
Economy, and State come to mind in this regard. But those
are epic tomes, numbering in the hundreds of pages. This little
book of Hazlitt's is merely an introduction, written, specifically,
for the beginner. I wonder of how many introductions to a subject
it can be truly said that they are classics? I would wager very,
very few, if any at all.
There is nothing
that pleases a teacher more than when that expression of understanding
lights up a student's face. The cartoons depict this phenomenon
in the form of a light bulb appearing right above the depiction
of the character. Well, let me tell you: I have gotten more "ahas"
out of introductory students who have read this book than from any
other. I warrant that there have been more conversions to the free-market
philosophy from this one economics book than, perhaps, from all
others put together. It is just that stupendous.
The only thing
I regret in this regard is that never again will I read this book
for the first time. That, gentle reader, is a privilege I greatly
envy you for having.
A word about
style. The content, here, we can take for granted. But the number
of economists who could really write can be counted upon one's fingers.
Hazlitt is certainly one of them. His verbiage fairly leaps off
the page, grabbing you by the neck. In fact, I now venture a very
minor "criticism": the author of this book is so elegant
a wordsmith that sometimes, rarely, I find myself so marveling at
his presentation that I take my eye off the "ball" of
the underlying economic message.
Read
the rest of the article
November
26, 2008
Dr.
Block [send him mail] is a
professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans, and a senior
fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He is the author of Defending
the Undefendable and the newly released Labor
Economics From A Free Market Perspective.
Copyright
© 2008 Ludwig von Mises Institute
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