Books & Movies I Recommend
This is a (in-progress) list of books and movies I recommend for various reasons. The criteria for items that are on here is that they are insightful or funny or a pleasure to read/watch, and they are not in the Western Canon (which is why the Bible, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and Casablanca are not here).
Most of them are about economics (directly or indirectly), so I didn’t categorize anything.
Mises.org offers serveral of these for free, and I have provided links to the free versions if I can find them.
Individualism and Economic Order
by F.A. Hayek
The best essays by F.A. Hayek (Austrian Economist and Nobel Lauriateare) are collected in this small book, containing, in my opinion, some of the best and most influencial intellectual arguments of the twentieth century. Most of the essays in this book are arguments put forth in the pivital Socialist Calculation Debate, an incedent in intellectual history that is largely forgotten, but extreamly relavent to today.
An essay in this book, “The Use of Knowledge in Society”, shaped my economic and political thinking more than any single other work. This essay is available online from EconLib.org.
Eat the Rich
by P.J. O’Rourke
A very funny book about economics – P.J. O’Rourke takes you on a “World Tour” of economic ideas, from Wall Street, to Cuba, to Sweden, to Russia, and back again. He then takes you on a tour of basic economic priciples, and his chapter on comparative advantage is one I plan on using in my economics classes if I ever teach the subject again.
You will laugh and laugh and, unbeknown to you, learn something.
Note: I do get a kickback from Amazon, but I morally support Mises.org and Cato.
