Since the beginning of 2022, the global economy has been suffering from a large wave of inflation that it has not witnessed in decades, against the background of the gradual return to global economic activities after the Corona pandemic crisis is nearing its end, which led to an imbalance in supply chains that resulted in a rise in the prices of all goods and services.
What made matters worse was the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war in February, which led to more negative consequences for the global economy.
Since this inflation affects everyone, and - according to global expectations - it will not go away soon, the first weapon to confront the current situation is to understand it correctly.
Therefore, we recommend here a group of books that simplify economics in the easiest way possible, and provide the reader with what he wants to know from all the basics related to economics that will inevitably affect the nature of his economic decisions in a volatile world.
Economics as I explain it to my daughter
“As an economics professor, I have always believed that if you cannot explain economics in a language that young people can easily understand, you are simply too ignorant.” Yanis Varoufakis
With these words, the Greek professor of economics, "Yannis Varoufakis", opens his book "Economy as I Explain It to My Daughter", which was first published in 2013, and then several international editions were issued in various languages of the world, including Arabic.
In fact, the author of the book is not only an academic university professor, but a veteran economist who held the position of Greek Finance Minister in 2015 as an expert in managing the science of economic crises, the kind of crises that Greece was experiencing at that period.
In recent years, this book has been considered one of the most important and, if not already, most popular economics simplification books ever.
The book combines essay and narrative narration, as the writer imagined that he is having a discussion with his young daughter who has Australian citizenship, and gradually explains to her all the principles of economics in a way that is completely devoid of any complications, and in a manner that suits a child in her early teens, and conveys this simplified discussion to the reader Whatever his age.
Varoufakis opens the first chapter of his book by asking the question anyone would ask: Why is the world so unequal?
Why is there a child in one society who has everything, is nourished well and learns well, while in another society there is a child of the same age who is deprived of everything, suffers from malnutrition and does not have the basics of a normal life?
Why is there a rich society and another poor?
Is it all related to the abundance or scarcity of resources already, or are there other factors that explain this dilemma?
Over the course of 8 chapters, the book delves into explaining all basic aspects of economics in an interesting way, during which the economics professor uses personal and public stories and anecdotes, addresses myths, explains complex economic concepts through very simple and focused examples, and answers his daughter's questions that are directed to him in different contexts. .
In its last chapters, the book touched on deep economic concepts such as interest, inflation, banking systems and how they work, and the link between the state's economy and its political and strategic movements, with a continuous focus on the concept of capitalism and its development throughout history.
The book also did not overlook the exposure to digital currencies, the context of their emergence, and the reasons for the increasing dependence on them around the world in recent years.
naked economy
We are talking here about one of the most important books to simplify economics that appeared at the beginning of the current millennium, specifically in 2002, the book "Naked Economics" by the American academic and journalist Charles Oelan.
The book has been translated into almost all languages of the world, including Arabic, and has received a positive critical evaluation in most specialized reviews by readers and economic academics alike.
The book follows the approach of its sub-title "A funny and interesting presentation of economic concepts", as it deals in its twelve chapters with all the basic economic concepts in a narrative style completely devoid of complex terms, equations or graphs.
Even economic terms and terms have been carefully chosen in the context of explanation and clarification, with a complete departure from the usual pattern in economic books, and always maintaining the pace of the discourse at the level of the reader who is not specialized in economics.
What is distinguished in the book "The Naked Economy" is the author's complete dependence on mentioning things and situations that we all experience in daily life, and trying to explain the economic dimensions in these situations, such as the high prices of commodities, bank interest, inflation, resource management, bankruptcy crises, financing, and others.
The book is also filled with economic rules that the reader can benefit from directly in his practical life, such as general principles of investment, methods of reaping wealth, optimal methods of saving, and others.
One of the most important distinguishing features in this book is the interesting style in which the chapter titles and phrases are formulated, as well as the diversity in mentioning stories and situations, making it one of the nicest books that presented a simplification of economics in recent decades.
Economic Informer: Why are the rich rich and the poor poor?
An interesting book by the American journalist and economist Tim Harford, who worked as a teacher of economics at Oxford University, worked as an expert in a number of international financial institutions, and wrote for many years a constant column in the "Financial Times" magazine entitled "Dear Economist" in which he constantly touched on the latest economic theories, and emptied To answer readers' economic questions in a fun and easy way.
Through ten elegant chapters, Harford explains many economic concepts without having to adhere to a continuous narrative format. Each chapter of the book contains a basic idea that deals with a particular economic aspect that elaborates on its meanings and gives examples.
In one chapter, the writer explains "The Secret Behind the Poverty of Poor Countries", and in another chapter, he talks at length about the secrets of supermarkets and how they control capital and attract consumers' money and keep them always in a state of motivation for their products.
At the end of the book, the author devotes an entire chapter to the miracle of China, and how a country where most of its population lived in extreme poverty for decades turned into a country with a very high level of wealth, whether at the governmental level or at the level of large segments of its people, which the writer considered tangible evidence of the possibility of Rapid major transformations in the economy, allowing the poorest countries to change their reality within a relatively short time.
The great advantage of the book "The Economic Informer" is that it is full of life details, and focuses more on linking each of the economic concepts with the events of daily life from the financial, economic and commercial aspects, which is what makes it one of the most important books to simplify economics and trade together.
The book was published in its first edition in 2005, and has been translated into all languages, including Arabic.
Simple lessons in economics
In a style that seems somewhat scholastic, the book "Simplified Lessons in Economics", authored by the famous economist Robert Murphy and published in its first edition in 2010, is considered one of the most important economics simplification books that appeared in the World Library.
The book deals with all contemporary economic concepts with a focused and clear explanation aimed at extreme simplification.
The book consists of 23 chapters divided into 4 large parts. It begins with an explanation of the basic principles of economics that the reader must understand first, such as the concepts of investment and savings, and the meaning of economics in a simplified manner.
Then, from the second part, he begins to delve into market economics with its capitalist aspect, and to delve into the concepts of commercial exchange, the story of the origin of money, the meaning of production, the laws of supply and demand, and the definition of the stock exchange and speculation.
In the third part of the book, the writer explains the anti-capitalist concept, which is the command economy or the socialist economy, highlighting in particular its negative effects in terms of its compatibility with fascist regimes often, and delving into the socialist examples that have historically failed based on his simplified capitalist analysis, then In the last part, he devotes himself to discussing the most important issues of contemporary economics such as inflation, monopoly, sales and income taxes, concepts of government debt, and economic cycles.
It can be said that the book "Simplified Lessons in Economics" is one of the reference books that should be found on the shelf of any person's library who is not a specialist in economics, due to the ease of indexing its topics on the one hand, and the ease of displaying and clarifying this information narration with focus and shortness devoid of long digressions on the other hand.
This book can be considered an essential school introduction to economics.
Your first steps towards understanding economics
In only about 100 pages, and in a very easy and focused style, the book "Your First Steps Towards Understanding Economics" comes as one of the most important economics simplification books written by an Arabic pen this time by the Qatari economist Dr. Jassim Al Sultan.
The book, whose first edition appeared in 2010, is part of a series of educational books specialized in preparing leaders.
The book, as its title indicates, aims to put the reader on the path to his knowledge of the basics of economics, using a nice dialogue and story style.
The author talks about the types of economy and its division into micro and macroeconomics, then touches on the elements of production, from which he focuses on the stages of the development of the economy since it was based on the duality of "master and slave", then its transformation into the dualism of "owners and peasants", and then finally reviews the era of the new economy. With the discovery of the Americas and the transition to capitalism and its development from the fifteenth century to the time we are witnessing now.
The book is divided into 15 topics, and it covers major economic theses, and contains some graphics that symbolize each era, which makes it one of the most important books recommended for everyone who wants to start getting acquainted with economics with a comprehensive view, as it helps the reader not only to quickly understand the topics simplicity, and even remember its most important elements easily based on the images and graphics it contains.
50 classic books on economics
The best book to finish this list with is Tom Butler-Bowdon's 50 Classic Books, which is akin to a grand index of the 50 most important economics books of the past decades.
The book's pages are close to 350 pages, and it includes fifty titles, each title of which the writer devotes a number of pages to, summarizing the most important ideas that came in this book, with an overview of its most important themes, chapters and chapters, as well as the historical - political and economic conditions - in which it was published.
The book includes titles and abstracts of antique books published in the nineteenth century, as well as titles and abstracts of books published in recent years, in no order.
The author focuses on a particular economic principle, and introduces it to the reader through a book that delves into an explanation of this concept, and addresses the most important points in it.
Therefore, it will be a little strange for a reader for the first time to read a chapter dealing with the summary of a book that was first published in 1867, such as Karl Marx’s Capital, and then read in the next chapter a book published in 2014, then return to an important economic book published at the beginning of the twentieth century , And so on.
The writer committed himself to summarizing the most important things in each book over 5 pages only, and constantly pointing out that these summaries are a simple prelude to delving into these books in detail.
The book has received a great positive critical evaluation since its first publication in 2017, and is considered one of the most important indexes for books of modern economics.
In the end, this list of books will not make you an expert in economics, of course, but it certainly guarantees you the minimum knowledge that makes you qualified to understand how things are run around you, and the real justifications for many of the events you read about in the newspapers regarding the global and local economy.
Most importantly, it will reveal the information you need to make your own personal economic decisions with minimal errors.
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Sources
** The books mentioned in the list are within the author's personal list, and all the information in the article is derived from the books themselves, or from the translations of their authors.