Ebook An Economic History of the World since 1400 Audible Audio Edition Donald J Harreld The Great Courses Books

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Most popular economic history books tend to be about various ideologies and their founders/proponents. Even as they discuss the key economic events, the focus rarely shifts away from pitching great ideas against each other. This course does a little bit of that, but its value is in distilling the same events to provide the genesis of numerous economic facets of modern life; these are constructs that we take for granted but they are utterly artificial whose coming into being have been impacted societies for centuries as the best of scientific and other discoveries.

Factories and shop-floors, firms as legal entities, banks and financial markets, central banks and fiat currencies, trade unions to taxes, civil laws, deficit funding, consumerism, equities/debt to structured products and so much more - constituents of modern economic life have a fascinating background as these lectures highlight. One may not agree with many of the conclusions as Prof Harreld often makes sweeping judgements while attributing the success/failures of certain societies or practices or ideologies that are anything but academic. The treatment of the subjects is also uneven superficiality turns more evident as one zips past the massive twentieth-century events with massive conclusions without remotely adequate explanations.

Overall, definitely worth a listen for the backdrops to our economic life but be wary of an offputing treatment of more common economic events, concepts and personalities.