My only criticism is that some parts of the book may be too technical for the broad audience intended by the publishers and could avail from the inclusion of more supporting diagrams. The section on game theory is particularly guilty of this. The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital: an Indian economist, sharing Dasgupta’s famous economist father’s name, in a majestic work of political economy/history

Yes, we get the vague history of Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. As in, that stuff that happened a long, long time ago, but there is no modern history because we now have the science of (liberal) economics and political "independence"/ "democracy"! It was Marx who spent so much effort seriously investigating Classical liberal economics and exposing its contradictions, that we now associate the above list (especially the first 3 items) to Marx rather than Smith/Ricardo etc.! The contradictions became so severe that pro-capitalists economics had to throw out the Classical framework entirely, only keeping its pro-capitalist conclusions!Up-to-date and progressive, this short book is written by an internationally recognized authority in the field. A little learning is a dangerous thing"; and a "very short introduction" does not have to be easy. Dasgupta's book is not written "for dummies" and it does not present its subject in the manner of an introductory textbook. Instead, Dasgupta offers the lay reader an example of how economists define problems and issues and try to solve them. In other words, the book offers the reader an example of how to "think like an economist". This gives the book a dense character. Dasgupta develops his own way of approaching and his position of questions of economics, neither of which might be fully shared by all members of his profession.

Michelle Baddeley has a Bachelor of Economics (First Class) from the University of Queensland and a Masters/PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge. She has held appointments at the Commonwealth Treasury in Canberra; Gonville and Caius College and the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge; University College London; and the Institute for Choice (University of South Australia). She is currently a Professor in Economics, the UTS Business School's Associate I probably would not have been as disappointed with this book as I was had the title not included such misleading words as "Introduction" and "Economics".

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