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Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World Paperback – 30 Nov 2010

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Deirdre N. McCloskey (Author)
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Deirdre N. McCloskey (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 3 customer reviews
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  • Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World
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  • The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce
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Product details

  • Paperback: 588 pages
  • Publisher: University of Chicago Press (30 Nov. 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0226556743
  • ISBN-13: 978-0226556741
  • Product Dimensions: 15.2 x 3.8 x 22.9 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 432,514 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

“The startling perspective McCloskey brings to the history of economics qualifies her as the Max Weber of our times. This is a wonderfully entertaining and stimulating antidote for the reigning view of "Homo Economicus".”—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
--Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“Over a wide range of nations and times, McCloskey advances the arresting thesis that humble ideas, especially those pertaining to the role of a bourgeois dignity, supply the spark that jumpstarts the rest of the process. Readers will be impressed with the breadth of her knowledge, the clarity of her thought, and the sophistication of this finely wrought book.”—Richard Epstein --Richard Epstein

“Deirdre McCloskey has embarked on a heroic enterprise, the wholesale reconsideration of the modern capitalist economy. The author’s lightness of touch is deeply admirable: competing hypotheses from the Protestant Ethic to technological determinism are rounded up and dispatched in a wonderfully invigorating fashion, and not the least of the many virtues of "Bourgeois Dignity "is the demonstration that serious argument can also be fun.”—Alan Ryan --Alan Ryan

"The startling perspective McCloskey brings to the history of economics qualifies her as the Max Weber of our times. This is a wonderfully entertaining and stimulating antidote for the reigning view of "Homo Economicus"."--Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

--Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"Over a wide range of nations and times, McCloskey advances the arresting thesis that humble ideas, especially those pertaining to the role of a bourgeois dignity, supply the spark that jumpstarts the rest of the process. Readers will be impressed with the breadth of her knowledge, the clarity of her thought, and the sophistication of this finely wrought book."--Richard Epstein --Richard Epstein

"Deirdre McCloskey has embarked on a heroic enterprise, the wholesale reconsideration of the modern capitalist economy. The author's lightness of touch is deeply admirable: competing hypotheses from the Protestant Ethic to technological determinism are rounded up and dispatched in a wonderfully invigorating fashion, and not the least of the many virtues of "Bourgeois Dignity "is the demonstration that serious argument can also be fun."--Alan Ryan --Alan Ryan

About the Author

Deirdre N. McCloskey is Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Among her many books are The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce; Crossing: A Memoir; The Secret Sins of Economics; and If You&rsquo;re So Smart: The Narrative of Economic Expertise, all published by the University of Chicago Press.

Customer Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 starsFunny and very intelligent book
By bill morrison on 28 Nov. 2012
Format: Paperback
This is not an easy subject to tackle and keep a general reader engaged but the author does a great job. She has obviously spent her life in this field as you can see in her often scathing comments on other authors who have tried to explain the shocking ascendance of the western world compared to all other previous societies in terms of material advances and the intellectual underpinnings that drive the system.

Conventional theories of how the UK came to create the system that the rest of the world now follows get a thorough and entertaining and clear thrashing. She points out clearly how only the capitalist system ever made any real change to the material condition of the world's population from the earliest history up until the take off created largely in England in the early modern period.

Her point is that simple economics does not really cover, or even describe properly what has happened and that the "bourgeois values" and their near global acceptance lie at the heart of the change. Read this book if you are interested in understanding the world we live in and how we got here.
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4.0 out of 5 starsGood Questions
By T. J. Jones on 23 Dec. 2010
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
I'm no economist, nor an academic, so hard to know how this work fits in with the literature, i.e. the various established positions on the historical event of the Industrial Revolution. But the book identifies two facts which as a layman I had not grasped: one, that starting around 1800 developed country spending per person leaps from $3 per person where it had been for ever, to $100 per person today (in current USD), and the global average across all people (despite huge population growth) is now $30 per person. So something happened a few hundred years ago that changed the direction of the world economy. Fine. Second point though, is that established explanations for this fact suffer from a series of problems, the clearest being that the supposed causes (e.g. trade, property rights, capital etc) existed, often for hundreds of years, prior to the explosion of the industrial revolution. McCloskey's own explanation is that the dignity (& liberty) offered to innovative middle class business people - the attitude to the entrepreneur, say - significantly changed in Holland and then Britain, and explains the triumph of capitalism. As I say, I cannot tell how well this theory holds up against competing theories not represented in McCloskey's book, but her efforts frame the question well enough that I'm prepared to give her answer some weight.
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4.0 out of 5 starsBankers bonuses?
By quirinus rijke on 12 Aug. 2014
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
You want to know how the Banking world gets away with it. Read this book.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)

Amazon.com: 3.9 out of 5 stars 24 reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars This is an excellent book, well researched and well thought out 28 Dec. 2014
By j betts - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
This is an excellent book, well researched and well thought out. Of particular interest is the evolution of philsophy, for that is what Ms. McCloskey is writing; yes, economic history, but much more. And, as she makes clear, just as all knowledge evolves, so must philosophy. She is critical of some 200 year old theories, not of their authors; times have changed, and much has happened since they developed them; I think most of them would agree; and she is almost always complimentary of their efforts and contributions.
The book, however, is far more than a compilation of theory; it is a basis for thinking for self about what she describes, and much of what she describes is the foundation of what the United States is and has become. It is not hype, and it is not whitewash; it is reality, something incredibly important for all to understand and appreciate as we assimilate and debate various arguing points.
Needless to say, I have been very impressed with what Ms. McCloskey has accomplished.
28 of 30 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Why are we now rich? Explaining the GREAT FACT! 18 Dec. 2011
By B Leyden - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
We in the Western World tend to take our present day wealth for granted, very much like an entitlement. And McCloskey makes clear just how very rich in real terms we are relative to most human kinds history. We don't stop to ask the logical follow-up question: Why are other societies - such as in Africa and South America - still so poor?

McCloskey's answer is that it is simple: (1)Give the "bourgeoisie" respect; and (2)give these same bourgeosie freedom. It is, according to this very mainline economic historian, THAT simple. It is the path that countries such as South Korea and China have successfully followed to achieve the same wealth and prosperity in little more than a generation.

McCloskey considers - and discards - alternative explanations for what economic historians describe as "The Great Fact." Explantions such as "colonial exploitation," Max Weber's Protestant work ethic, and the "Guns, Germs and Steel" advantage that European nations had over the rest of the world.

On the surface - and before you read her book - you might have concluded that the author was some kind of right-wing apologist. Nothing could be farther from the truth! As McCloskey makes clear, she started off her university and economic career from a Marxist orientation. She makes clear that her political inclinations are still mainly to the "left." In other words, the facts as she discovered them forced the conclusion.

McCloskey is a very literate - and cultured - thinker. This in my opinion is a very, very important book that deserves every intellectually inclined persons attention.
3.0 out of 5 stars Great Book but, Verbose, verbose, verbose..... 9 Jan. 2015
By Delavalle - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
I liked her ideas, but reading the book was a painful experience for me. Way too many compound sentences and way to many references to her colleagues that would have been better put in footnotes. I bought her book on economic writing before attempting this bulky work. Still as a free market, pro innovation admirer of a positive outlook on humanity type of amateur philosopher it had lots of interesting history that I did not was aware of. Seems it was written to persuade and impress her fellow ivory tower academics. If you are a dummy like me looking for a reason for the Great Fact try "The 5000 year Leap" by W Cleon Skousen. In fact the audio version is great for the car.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the few books that has changed the way ... 9 Aug. 2014
By Ed Kless - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
One of the few books that has changed the way I look at the world. Ideas, rhetoric, semantics, language are not only important; they are really all there is. This book offers the reader a chance to see the world in a new way. The challenge is, can the reader suspend all their preconceived notions about what they previously believed.
33 of 37 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Great Ideas, Unpleasant to Read 6 Oct. 2011
By Amazon Customer - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
McCloskey's primary idea in this book is that the explosion in wealth creation that started somewhere around 1800 is due to a changing attitude towards making money; it became cool ("dignified") to make money instead of vulgar, unclean, unholy, etc. She argues this forcefully and completely enough that it seems plausible that she's right and I found it convincing that the change in attitude was at least a factor in the extraordinary explosion of innovation and wealth.

While the ideas and content are excellent, I found the writing painful to read. It could've been written in one-third as many pages without skipping any content whatsoever. After a few hundred pages, it was hard to not start skimming.

I'd love for these ideas to be read by as many people as possible, but I wouldn't want to put anybody through the pain of reading this book. If you have a lot of time and want to read an interesting perspective on economic history, then I recommend buying and at least skimming this book. Otherwise, I'd skip it.
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