There are so many enticing new economics books coming out this spring that I couldn't fit it all into one post. I'll start the second installment with one I'm particularly looking forward to, The Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser, published by Macmillan in March. I've had the privilege of working with Ed on projects in Glasgow (see New Wealth for Old Nations: Scotland's Economic Prospects) and Manchester (on the Manchester Independent Economic Review) so I know it will be a terrific book on urban economics and the impact of technological and structural change on cities' prospects.
From MIT Press there's a new title in the terrific Boston Review series, Government's Place in the Market by Eliot Spitzer. Also of interest are Redesigning Leadership by John Maeda; Reforming U.S. Financial Markets: Reflections Before and Beyond Dodd-Frank by Randall Kroszner and Robert Shiller; and – no doubt one of many to come on this subject – Blowout in the Gulf: The BP Oil Spill Disaster and the Future of
Energy in America by William Freudenberg and Robert Gramling. Given my techno-interests, I'm also intrigued by The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading: Tales of the Computer as Culture Machine by Peter Lunenfeld.
Cambridge University Press has some intriguing books on offer too. I'd pick out a three-volume Economic History of Modern Britain by John Clapham, a reprint of a 1930 book. The catalogues says: “The first volume of John Harold Clapham's remarkable and original work
begins with a comprehensive description of Britain on the eve of the
Railway Age, covering topics such as the organisation of agriculture,
industry and commerce. The second volume covers the period of the Great
Exhibition and the development of the production of cheap mass-produced
steel; the railway system continued to grow and the fortunes of canals
and decline. With the third volume, Professor Clapham completes the
work, bringing the story down to 1929.” My interest is also aroused by Individuals and Identity in Economics by John B Davis, looking at the evolving way the individual is treated in the subject, covering for example developments in neuroeconomics.
From Polity Press in March comes The New Scramble for Africa by Padraig Carmody, another welcome study about inward investment in the continent's natural resources. Yale University Press is offering What's Next: Unconventional Wisdom on the Future of the World Economy by David Hale and Lyric Hughes Hale; and The Theory That Would Not Die (about Bayes' Theorem) by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne.
These are the ones I've picked up on so far. If any publishers think I've left out prospects of interest to the general reader of economics books, do let me know and I can post a Part 3.