A brilliant title for a new book by Richard Bronk (Cambridge UP). It brings to mind Spandau Ballet rather than the usual dark suited economist. I shall immediately ditch my dull work outfits for same flouncy white shirts. Richard said in his note to me that he expected I'd disagree with his thesis, which is that the conventional perspective of economics – self-interested rational agents with independent preferences – must be supplemented with other perspectives, especially the imaginative. This argument is supported with historical chapters on the development of utilitarianism-based economics in conflict with the Romantic poets. In fact, I agreed with quite a lot of what he says: that neoclassical economic models should be supplemented with behavioural approaches and with sociological insight, and that we should be humbler about our ability to predict, for example. Where I differ is that he is eager to drop the need for modelling and for equilibrium, whereas for me these are the source of the analytical muscle of economics. If we see this as only one amongst several descriptive approaches, then we're doing history or sociology and not economics. ANyway, I'm meeting Richard face-to-face to have the debate, and will post a full review later. Watch this space.