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Happiness: Lessons from a New Science (Second Edition) Paperback – 7 Apr 2011

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Richard Layard (Author)
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Richard Layard (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 38 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin; 2nd Revised edition edition (7 April 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0241952794
  • ISBN-13: 978-0241952795
  • Product Dimensions: 13 x 2.5 x 19.9 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 51,648 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

Unorthodox, devastatingly straightforward and more provocative of actual thought than 90% of books said to be "thought-provoking". If happiness isn't a political issue, what's the point of politics? (Andrew Marr)

A remarkable book ... which effectively trashes the claim of economics to guide policy for a good society ... read it, and take heart (Simon Caulkin Observer)

Fascinating ... argues that we should make happiness, not growth, the object of our economic policies (John Kay Financial Times)

About the Author

Richard Layard is a leading economist who believes that the happiness of society does not necessarily equate to its income. He is best known for his work on unemployment and inequality, whihc provided the intellectual basis for Britain's improved unemployment policies. He founded the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, and since 2000 he has been a member of the House of Lords. His research into the subject of happiness brings together findings from such diverse areas as psychology, neuroscience, economics, sociology and philosophy.

Customer Reviews

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Top Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsI don't care too much for money...
By John Ault VINE VOICE on 14 Nov. 2005
Format: Hardcover
... Money can't buy me love, or it would seem happiness, if the statistics on depression and anxiety in the modern western world compared with the 1950s are to be believed. This book is about the paradox of market economics - we pursue ever greater productivity, flexibility and trade, and our material wealth piles up - yet we do not seem to get happier. Indeed, the things that make us happy - friends, family, love, community - are not things that we trade, and modern economies tend to atomise us into consumers, living far from our families and barely knowing our neighbours.
Professor Layard's strength in adressing this subject is that he comes from a hard-edged economics backgroud. There is no woolyness here, no hostility towards success. Instead, there is a rational effort to focus on happiness as the correct priority for public policy - including economic policy. Facinating, but unfortunatly the prognosis is a great deal clearer than the cure.
Truely thought provoking, even it some of those thoughts are "well we really have messed it all up."
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5.0 out of 5 starsEverything you ever wanted to know about Happiness
By Martin Akiyama on 7 May 2006
Format: Hardcover
I think this was the book that started the current trendiness of Happiness. Despite being fairly short it covers everything you could possibly want to know, and has a bibliography and internet links for anyone wanting to know more about any particular topic.

It is an important book because in some ways the modern world is making people more and more unhappy. But it doesn't have to be that way. The author offers suggestions, backed by solid evidence, for political and economic reforms and also for personally achieving greater happiness.
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4.0 out of 5 starsImportant topic, important book
By A Customer on 7 Mar. 2005
Format: Hardcover
Richard Layard is very convincing in his argument that more money does not necessarily make you happier. This is an important and very hot topic (just last month McConnell's 'Make Money, Be Happy' argued a similar case but on a more personal 'what do I do about it' level).
Layard is an economist, but he brings in helpings of philosophy, psychology and neuroscience along the way. It's a very thought provoking book.
If McConnell, Layard and others are right, as the evidence suggests they are, then the question is what this means for capitalism as we know it? If more money doesn't make us happier than capitalism starts to look a bit rocky.
Layard's Happiness is the No Logo style agenda book laying out all the evidence and exploring what does and doesn't make us happy. McConnell's Make Money Be Happy is perfect if you are trying to work out how on earth you find the right balance between money and happiness in your life. Actually they complement each other perfectly.
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5.0 out of 5 starsA very readable introduction to an important new science
By Menno Middeldorp on 30 Sept. 2006
Format: Paperback
This book makes a compelling and accessible case that the new science of happiness is very relevant to how we shape our society. Layard is an economist by education and argues that his own profession has been complacent in almost unthinkingly using consumption as a practical approximation of happiness. The policy recommendations that result have made us richer, but often not happier. Layard says that it is now possible to measure happiness and thus there is no excuse not to tailor policies to achieve the goal of making society happier. In a very readable fashion he connects recent research on what makes people happy (things like stable families, socially integrated neighbourhoods and low unemployment) to some possible policies. Although one may not agree with some of his recommendations the book is refreshing in its approach. As a result I feel that all my fellow economists should read this to get a new perspective on our profession. Politicians and voters should also read it for new insights on how we should shape our society.
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3.0 out of 5 starsInteresting - but not a self help book
By g.buxton on 25 Jun. 2010
Format: Paperback
When I bought this one I was half expecting a self-help book, or at the very least some significant elements of this. Unfortunately the self help element of the book is left to a chapter or two at the end, the answers being mainly buddhism and mediation. Most of the book builds a picture of what makes people happy, but very much from an economists point of view, with some elements of psychology thrown in. Confusingly the book says that real income has risen over the years which is in direct contradiction to other books that I have read. I don't know who to believe!

Whilst interesting for the general reader I feel its written more for policy and decision makers looking to create strategies that target increasing happiness. To the rest of us its a quite a detailed economic and psychological analysis of happiness but is not a book to buy if you are looking for instruction or self-help on improving your life.
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5.0 out of 5 starsRevolutionary
By James L. on 14 Dec. 2005
Format: Hardcover
As a student of economics at A level, I found this book truly revolutionary. We all know that money does not equal happiness, but perhaps the advocates of materialism needed reminding once more.
The book proposes that the main objective of a society should be gross national happiness. In this way it shifts the economic goalposts from wealth to welfare. As happiness can now, supposedly, be accurately measured it seems a more realisic goal. It is the measurement of happiness which is instrumental in a shift of perspective, as previously it had been thought that happiness could not be measured. Therefore it would be impossible to judge the success of a policy aimed towards increasing happiness.
The fact that each person has different things that make them happy could serve to undermine a governmental pursuit of happiness on behalf of the masses. The book does not provide much in the way of policy that could increase happiness, even though it claims to do so. The policies it advocates include: tax as internalising the negative externality derived from earning more income than your peers, more PSHE lessons in schools, searching for a common goal, fostering a sense of community. Apart from the first; these policies, although differing from capitalism, are hardly revolutionary. As a critique of the current school of thought: excellent, but in terms of coming up with policy: only good.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsa must read

I love it and never loose an opportunity to recommended it. It's so positive that create happiness just by reading it.

Published 7 days ago by Meiss-Tauffen
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

good

Published 14 months ago by Xu Peng
4.0 out of 5 starsRecommended

Fascinsting read. Inspiring.

Published 18 months ago by Ism
5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent!!!

Excellent book, makes you think about everything that is going on in this world and your own world too.

Published 20 months ago by Jayne
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

excellent read

Published on 30 July 2014 by Pade
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Great item

Published on 5 July 2014 by H. Newman
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat investigation of what makes us happy and how society can improve...

I'd been meaning to read this book for some time and wasn't disappointed. It is an excellent analysis of all the latest research, including the author's own, into what makes people... Read more

Published on 2 Oct. 2013 by MISS K J MIDDLETON
5.0 out of 5 starsAccessible and informative

This is an excellent academic text that includes real riguorous academic research by Layard (top British economist). Read more

Published on 9 Sept. 2013 by Rosh
5.0 out of 5 starsMakes total sense

Read lots of books re happiness but love that this is based on facts and makes total sense backed up by lots of studies/research.

Published on 28 Oct. 2012 by Tony Dwyer
5.0 out of 5 starsFantastic

This book is well written, clear, easy to understand and wonderfully hopeful and positive about 'where to from here' on the search for happiness, not only as an individual but as a... Read more

Published on 7 Jun. 2012 by Joanne5000

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