As an 'introduction', this book is an extremely heavy read for anyone not already intimately familiar with economics (and even then, it would probably still be a tough book to get through).

Of course, one should ask why it is that the Europeans managed to colonize the tropics; why colonization didn’t take place the other way round. The discipline also tries to identify ways to influence these processes so as to improve the prospects of those who are hugely constrained in what they can be and do. Imagine that, a question of real-world social concern, and here I am thinking (mainstream) “economics” is the field of selfish individuals abstracted from social context, simply bartering to maximize utility, resulting in harmonious equilibriums. The former activity involves finding explanations, while the latter tries to identify policy prescriptions.Professor Sir Partha Sarathi Dasgupta (born November 17, 1942), FBA, FRS, is the Frank Ramsey Professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom; Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge; Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; and Professor of Environmental and Development Economics at the University of Manchester.

For example, he explores how the world's looming population problems affect us at the local, national, and international level.institutions (in particular science and technology), households and firms (including property rights, risk), modelling sustainable economic development, modelling social wellbeing, and even the game theory of voting (framed as if this is an adequate intro to “democracy”, how liberal reformist can we get? If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.