Edible Economics: A Hungry Economist Explains the World

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Bestselling author and economist Ha-Joon Chang makes challenging economic ideas delicious by plating them alongside stories about food from around the world, using the diverse histories behind familiar food items to explore economic theory.

Przez niekonwencjonalne podejście i formę (bo książka momentami przypomina kulinarną) jest bardziej interesująca i wciągająca. Myth-busting, witty, and thought-provoking, Edible Economics serves up a feast of bold ideas about globalization, climate change, immigration, austerity, automation, and why carrots need not be orange. Structuring the book as a series of menus, Chang uses histories behind familiar food items – where they come from, how they are cooked and consumed, what they mean to different cultures – to explore economic theory.But some of them work much better than others: the train of thought from spices to shareholder value runs along quite smoothly, but elsewhere the narrative shifts from chicken to the welfare system with all the elegance of a Eurovision key-change. My food stories are a bit like the ice cream that some of your mums may have offered to ‘bribe’ you to eat your ‘greens’ – except that in this book ice cream comes first, the greens later (what a deal! Explaining everything from the hidden cost of care work to the misleading language of the free market as he cooks dishes like anchovy and egg toast, Gambas al Ajillo and Korean dotori mook, Ha-Joon Chang serves up an easy-to-digest feast of bold ideas. I was worried that this book would be similar to the Jungle and I'd be considering being a vegan after reading this book. I might be past the point in my economics education where beginner-level books aimed at introducing economics to general readers fail to excite me, but this was such a fresh style and take on the subject.

Very refreshing is not only his style, but also his Korean background - he offers an original, non-Western-centric point of view on food as well as on economics. In Edible Economics, Chang makes challenging economic ideas more palatable by plating them alongside stories about food from around the world.It shows that getting to grips with the economy is like learning a recipe: when we understand it, we can adapt and improve it—and better understand our world. kg can or a 300 g can of anchovies in olive oil on a given run to the supermarket, I appreciated how Mr Chang used commonly eaten and popular foodstuff across the world to explain economic theories, political-economic systems, processes, and even an economist's overview of world history from the recent past to the present. Now I’m off to read some additional reviews to see what others thought about this one, because I’m not entirely sure what to think.

As a longtime follower of Ha-Joon's ideas and work, I was familiar with most of the points he discussed in this book, from the importance of strategic industrial policy to the power politics of international trade. His descriptions of the wheres and hows of the food items serve as a springboard for his explanations about the economics and both are equally entertaining. In chapters with titles such as Noodle and Banana, Ha-Joon Chang sketches out the story of his home country’s rise.Este libro es fascinante porque conjuga con eficacia la gastronomía, la historia , la geografía y la economía. Ha-Joon Chang is a Professor Economics at SOAS University of London, and is one of the world’s leading economists. There are a few awkward transitions and pacing issues but nothing severe enough to overcome the good. Of course his conclusion says he hopes this book gives us deplorables an appreciation for the variety of economic viewpoints.

Chang does say upfront that this is what he’s going to do – that this isn’t a book about the economics of food per se, but a restatement of his core arguments, with culinary anecdotes functioning as treats to keep the reader interested. Raczej tę książkę polecam dla młodych ludzi, zainteresowanych lub których chcemy zainteresować ekonomią, gospodarka światową, a nie dla tych którzy mają jako takie pojęcie o tych kwestiach. Essentially we got dinner and a movie where the dinner although quite interesting had nothing to do with the movie which was decent yet somewhat underwhelming.

But I appreciated the fact that his criticisms of neoclassical economics were packaged in a new and novel way — through food. P 130: “ [re climate change, the government decides what you eat] “…changing our eating habits can have a big impact…. So do bear in mind that the book is meant for the general public, the lay public, and not for specialists in economy or history, and that a lot of the things asserted here are the author's opinions and experiences, and tastes in food, which are always personal. Ha-Joon Chang has been working hard at providing an alternative to neoliberalism for two decades now, ever since his book Kicking Away the Ladder pointed out that low taxes, free trade and deregulation simply wasn’t the way that most rich countries had developed. El autor es un economista partidario de un capitalismo regulado y sustentable, pero un gran detractor de las premisas neoliberales que han sido dominantes en las últimas décadas.