Selected as one of Amazon's "Top Ten Business Books of 2006"
"A brilliant, thought-provoking and wide-ranging book… For me, it was more than the business book of 2006; it was the book of 2006."
- Martin Wolf, Financial Times
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"Every once in a while, a book comes along that is able
to pull together all the divergent threads of economic thinking into something
approaching a coherent, understandable whole. The Origin of Wealth is such a book… it is a brilliant piece of intellectual history that deserves a prominent place on any shelf of economic literature."
- Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post
"This is a remarkable book. The title betrays the scale of its ambition, yet the scale of its achievement comes close to matching it. There are thought-provoking ideas on almost every page…. It is unquestionably the most important business book of the year."
- John Kay, Management Today
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"An absorbing survey…a tour de force. Economic models have shaped the world around us, from Adam Smith and the growth of free trade to Karl Marx and the rise of socialism. It's time to wake up from what Beinhocker calls 'the dream of a clockwork universe.'"
- James Presseley, Bloomberg
"In this ambitious tome, Beinhocker jettisons the canon of economic history and recasts it as a teeming evolutionary stew… a convention-shattering take on what some call “the dismal science”... its premise is novel and sweeping: Don’t grow your organization, evolve it."
- Josh McHugh, Wired
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"This is probably the most original business book that I have come across in over 20 years of reviewing…hugely stimulating."
- Carol Kennedy, Director
"Beinhocker's book does a masterful job of bringing this radical rethinking of economic theory to public notice….Beinhocker writes with passion about his subject, engaging the reader at all times… Above all else, this is an important and fascinating subject and the book is a pleasure to read."
- London Book Review
"Broad-ranging…a frontal attack on neoclassical economic theory. Beinhocker’s wide-ranging intellect touches on all subjects."
- Professor Herbert Gintis, Journal of Economic Literature
"Beinhocker is nothing if not ambitious….thoughtful and provocative."
- Sir Howard Davies, Director London School of Economics, The Times (Higher Education Supplement)
"Accounting for the creation of wealth has long challenged humanity's best minds. For business readers and academics, Beinhocker is a zealous and able guide to the emerging economic paradigm shift he calls the "Complexity Economics revolution.""
- Publisher's Weekly
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"In this work, Beinhocker is a story teller of the first rank."
- Neil Reynolds, Globe and Mail
"In the long history of economic thought a dozen or so
works stand out as seminal in their exquisite blend of data and theory and
epochal boldness in attempting to answer a big question. The newest addition to
the canon is Eric Beinhocker's The Origin of Wealth."
- Michael Shermer, New York Sun's "Best Books of 2006"
"Mr. Beinhocker is a master synthesizer… He shreds the silliness and outright intellectual dishonesty that has kept so many flawed economic theories in contemporary curricula and policy debates for so long. …[His] commitment to business relevance [also] makes his book a usable read as well as a good one."
- Michael Schrage, Strategy + Business "Best Business Books of 2006"
Read full quotes from book jacket on the Reviews page »
