It's rare for me to plug a book I haven't read, but how could I resist doing so for The Enlightened Economy by Joel Mokyr. In fact, it's not yet published – Yale University Press is bringing it out in September. It's billed as focussing on “the importance of ideological and institutional factors in the rapid development of the British economy during the years between the Glorious Revolution and the Crystal Palace Exhibition.” In what sounds like a characteristic approach by Mokyr, he discusses “what key players knew and believed, and how those beliefs affected their economic behaviour.” The book should be a perfect complement to Robert Allen's recent book on the British Industrial Revolution, emphasising relative factor endowments, which I reviewed here. We're lucky to have two important new texts on this subject within a few months of each other, and I'm sure that Mokyr's, like Allen's, will take forward our understanding. So I'm looking forward to reading it when it's out.