The legendary bestseller that made millions look at the world in a radically different way returns in a beautiful 20th anniversary edition featuring a new foreword
Which is more dangerous: a gun or a swimming pool? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? What do real estate agents and the KKK have in common?
These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life-from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing-and whose conclusions turn conventional wisdom on its head. Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.
Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives-how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they explore the hidden side of everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a great deal of complexity and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and-if the right questions are asked-is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.
This 20th anniversary edition of the book includes a gorgeous new cover design and a new foreword by Stephen Dubner, reflecting on the unexpected impact Freakonomics has had on the world over the last two decades, as well as the New York Times Magazine profile Dubner wrote about Levitt that started it all.
"Provocative… eye-popping." - New York Times Book Review: Inside the List
"If Indiana Jones were an economist, he'd be Steven Levitt… Criticizing Freakonomics would be like criticizing a hot fudge sundae." - Wall Street Journal
"The guy is interesting!" - Washington Post Book World
"The funkiest study of statistical mechanics ever by a world-renowned economist... Eye-opening and sometimes eye-popping" - Entertainment Weekly
"Steven Levitt has the most interesting mind in America... Prepare to be dazzled." - Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and The Tipping Point
"Principles of economics are used to examine daily life in this fun read." - People: Great Reads
"Levitt dissects complex real-world phenomena, e.g. baby-naming patterns and Sumo wrestling, with an economist's laser." - San Diego Union-Tribune
"Levitt is a number cruncher extraordinaire." - Philadelphia Daily News
"Levitt is one of the most notorious economists of our age." - Financial Times
"Hard to resist." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Freakonomics is politically incorrect in the best, most essential way.... This is bracing fun of the highest order." - Kurt Andersen, host of public radio's Studio 360 and author of Turn of the Century
"Freakonomics was the 'It' book of 2005." - Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"An eye-opening, and most interesting, approach to the world." - Kirkus Reviews
"An unconventional economist defies conventional wisdom." - Associated Press
"A showcase for Levitt's intriguing explorations into a number of disparate topics…. There's plenty of fun to be ha
