A World of Wealth: How Capitalism Turns Profits into Progress by Thomas G. Donlan

While I agree with most of his premises...the delivery needs some work

I'm an economics teacher with a firm belief that markets are the single most efficient way of creating wealth and that interfering with markets is a sure way to slow or stop the creation of wealth for all, not just for the elites.

However, despite the sometimes eloquent prose, Donlan's A World of Wealth is merely a solid book, not a great one. Two issues cloud the book for me:

1) no footnotes, endnotes or even a bibliography. Instead, there is only an interesting list of recommended reading. I would not let my high school students get away with such shoddy scholarship, an editor of a magazine should know better.

2) Meandering text and incomplete arguments get in the way of his discussions of immigration and education. Too bad since there is some nice writing here.

This one won't hurt the reader too much (scholarship-wise) but others do it better.

A better introductory text would be Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: A World of Wealth.

Reviewed on January 13, 2009.