The 31 Best Economics Books of All Time

Eighteenth-century treatises, Cold War manifestos and airport bestsellers all wrestle with one puzzle: why some societies get rich and others don't. Back the ones that actually changed how you see money.

1. 1
   The Wealth of Nations

   Adam Smith's 1776 founding text of modern economics, introducing the division of labour and the invisible hand.
   1000pts
2. 2
   The General Theory

   John Maynard Keynes's 1936 work that explained mass unemployment and launched macroeconomics.
   946pts
3. 3
   The Economic Consequences of the Peace

   Keynes's 1919 polemic predicting the Treaty of Versailles would wreck Europe's economy.
   771pts
4. 4
   Economics in One Lesson

   Henry Hazlitt's 1946 primer on looking past the immediate effects of economic policy.
   624pts
5. 5
   Principles of Political Economy and Taxation

   David Ricardo's 1817 treatise that set out comparative advantage and the theory of rent.
   624pts
6. 6
   Thinking, Fast and Slow

   Daniel Kahneman's 2011 tour of the two systems of thought behind the biases that behavioural economics studies.
   560pts
7. 7
   Basic Economics

   Thomas Sowell's jargon-free, equation-free guide to how economies work.
   560pts
8. 8
   Small Is Beautiful

   E.F. Schumacher's 1973 essays arguing for human-scale, sustainable economics.
   485pts
9. 9
   A Monetary History of the United States

   Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz's 1963 study that blamed the Great Depression on monetary contraction.
   485pts
10. 10
    Das Kapital

    Karl Marx's critique of political economy, first published in 1867, analysing capital, labour and exploitation.
    485pts
11. 11
    The Ascent of Money

    Niall Ferguson's 2008 financial history of the world, from Mesopotamian loans to modern markets.
    485pts
12. 12
    Doughnut Economics

    Kate Raworth's 2017 framework for meeting human needs within planetary boundaries.
    485pts
13. 13
    Poor Economics

    Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo's 2011 field-evidence look at how the world's poorest people actually live.
    397pts
14. 14
    Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy

    Joseph Schumpeter's 1942 classic that coined creative destruction as capitalism's engine.
    397pts
15. 15
    Human Action

    Ludwig von Mises's 1949 magnum opus of the Austrian School.
    397pts
16. 16
    This Time Is Different

    Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff's 2009 survey of eight centuries of financial crises.
    397pts
17. 17
    The Wealth and Poverty of Nations

    David Landes's 1998 history of why some nations grew rich and others stayed poor.
    397pts
18. 18
    Nudge

    Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's 2008 book on how choice architecture steers everyday decisions.
    397pts
19. 19
    Freakonomics

    Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's 2005 bestseller applying economic thinking to cheating, crime and baby names.
    397pts
20. 20
    Free to Choose

    Milton and Rose Friedman's 1980 companion to the TV series arguing for economic freedom.
    397pts
21. 21
    The Great Transformation

    Karl Polanyi's 1944 history of how market society emerged and the backlash it provoked.
    397pts
22. 22
    Principles of Economics

    Alfred Marshall's 1890 textbook that brought supply-and-demand curves to the centre of economics.
    397pts
23. 23
    23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

    Ha-Joon Chang's 2010 myth-busting look at free-market orthodoxy.
    397pts
24. 24
    The Road to Serfdom

    Friedrich Hayek's 1944 warning that central planning leads to the loss of individual freedom.
    291pts
25. 25
    Capitalism and Freedom

    Milton Friedman's 1962 case for free markets as the foundation of political liberty.
    291pts
26. 26
    Why Nations Fail

    Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson's 2012 argument that inclusive institutions decide which countries prosper.
    291pts
27. 27
    The Undercover Economist

    Tim Harford's 2005 bestseller revealing the economics behind coffee prices, traffic and everyday life.
    291pts
28. 28
    The Theory of the Leisure Class

    Thorstein Veblen's 1899 satire that introduced conspicuous consumption.
    291pts
29. 29
    Debt: The First 5,000 Years

    David Graeber's 2011 anthropological history of credit, money and obligation.
    291pts
30. 30
    Capital in the Twenty-First Century

    Thomas Piketty's 2013 data-driven bestseller on the long-run rise of wealth inequality.
    0pts
31. 31
    The Worldly Philosophers

    Robert Heilbroner's 1953 lively history of the great economic thinkers and their ideas.
    0pts

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