HISTORY & BIOGRAPHY

In the Long Run We're All Dead
The Lives and Deaths of Great Economists

‘This is a fascinating, readable, and quirky set of mini-biographies of some leading, and more obscure economists, united in having interesting lives and deaths.’
Vince Cable

Until the late nineteenth century, economics couldn’t even be studied at university and was the preserve of polymathic figures whose radical curiosity drew them to an evolving discipline that was little understood and often derided. Each of the thirteen chapters of this book tells the story of just such a figure. Each of their extraordinary lives is worthy of fiction, and the manner of their deaths, oddly, often illuminate their work. 

In the Long Run We’re All Dead shows us how these great economists developed their theories for which they became famous. And these often-complex ideas are explained here with reference to the lives of their creators in a style that is engaging, irreverent, and comic. Though what Frank tells us about these lives is true, this is also a book of imaginative speculation that considers how economists’ principles might be applied to problems of today and of the future.