My Weekly Book

Freakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner

Ten observations about Freakonomics:

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1. This is a zeitgeisty little book and it’s easy to tell that because it has made it onto the three-for-two table in every single bookshop that I go into. This has probably got as much to do with why I am reading it as anything else.
2. It is billed, and raved about by its fans, as ‘a different way of looking at the world’. Is there any truth in this statement? I think so - the book stresses the importance of going beyond conventional wisdom and easy answers and to ask what the data is actually telling you. The tools it uses to do this are economic ones because one of the authors, Steven Levitt, is a noted economist.
3. But is his approach just another form of snake oil? There have been attempts by other economists to deconstruct aspects of his work and overturn his more controversial conclusions. Levitt admits freely that he is not the world’s greatest mathematician and the odd mathematical error appears to have crept in here and there. However, this hardly invalidates his entire corpus of work (if it did I would have become a social outcast many years ago). All you can really do is read it and make your mind up for yourself.
4. So, what is Freakonomics actually about? It is an enjoyable canter through a whole range of topics that Levitt and his co-author journalist Stephen J Dubner found interesting. More famous one include the economics of crack dealing, the honesty or otherwise of estate agents and the effects of legalised abortion on America’s crime rates.
5. The book claims to have no unifying theme and, furthermore, to strike a blow for the publication of other books with no unifying theme. Is this actually true? I thought it was perhaps less the case than the authors think, or say they think - see point two where it is proved perfectly possible to summarise in a sentence what this book is about. This looks to me like one of these cases where the requirements of publishers and the requirements of readers are two entirely different things - and the requirements of publishers came close to taking priority.
6. The wide-ranging subject matter means the book is interesting, quirky and a page-turner. If you don’t like one area of the discussion you can be fairly sure that the narrative will move rapidly onwards towards something you will enjoy.
7. Most of the people who have got annoyed with Levitt’s work seem to be under the impression that he takes a political position on the issues he discusses - which he doesn’t. Therefore the reader is that much less likely to find themselves throwing the book across the room in disgust, and even topics that you fear won’t engage you can prove interesting.
8. What about the tone of voice? You might find it chatty and engaging, or possibly smug and annoying. I found it was a pretty fine balance between the two. But if the adjective ‘geeky’ puts your back up then I would definitely steer clear.
9. Pet hate time: this edition (which is revised and expanded from the original one: the authors found they had been misled by the reputation of a bloke called Stetson Kennedy) has got the worst case of back-end infill that I have ever seen. It is 320 pages long and the narrative actually winds up on page 191. That’s right, more than 100 pages of stuff at the back - or a third of the book. This includes columns, blog posts, extensive notes and the index - interesting and useful stuff but, blimey, if you don’t expect it you may find it really unbalances the book.
10. So, it worth reading? I thought so. It’s interesting, challenging and it makes you think. It’s also amusing and not too taxing. You just need to take the authors’ own advice to heart - don’t believe the hype, judge for yourself.

Some links:

• Freakonomics blog (now swallowed up by the New York Times)
• Crooked Timber blog: academic discussion of Freakonomics (cited by the authors as a good link to visit)
• Levitt’s University of Chicago homepage
• Time Magazine profile of Levitt
• Stephen Dubner’s website

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This entry was posted on Saturday, August 11th, 2007 at 10:13 am and is filed under 2007 reading challenge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.