Mainstream economists everywhere exhibit an "irrational passion for dispassionate rationality." Behavioral economists, and long-time critic of mainstream economics suggests that people in mainstrean economic models "can think like Albert Einstein, store as much memory as IBM’s Big Blue, and exercise the will power of Mahatma Gandhi," suggesting that such a view of real world modern homo sapiens is simply wrongheaded. Indeed, Thaler and other behavioral economists and psychology have documented a variety of ways in which real-world people fall far short of mainstream economists' idealized economic actor, perfectly rational homo economicus. Behavioral economist Daniel Ariely has concluded that real-world people not only exhibit an array of decision-making frailties and biases, they are "predictably irrational," a position now shared by so many behavioral economists, psychologists, sociologists, and evolutionary biologists that a defense of the core rationality premise of modedrn economics is demanded.

"'If Furetiere (1619-1688) hadn't been friends with Racine and Boileau, if he hadn't been famous for his Dictionary and for his battle with the Academie Francaise, it is unlikely that we would still be speaking of the Roman bourgeois (1666). Its qualities are decidedly few. One cannot even say in its favour that it bears witness to a period and a moment in our literary history.' So writes Antoine Adam in his magisterial history of 17th-century French literature. But whatever one might feel about the aesthetic value of the Roman bourgeois - and following Adam it is usually classified as a precocious though failed example of narrative realism, sadly out of step with the classicism of its time - can we really say that it bears no witness to its period? Craig Moyes shows on the contrary how, within the disarticulated narrative of the Roman bourgeois, Furetiere - the titular abbot, the sitting academician, the secret lexicographer, the experimental novelist - was uniquely placed to explore a changing literary economy marked most spectacularly by the trial of Nicolas Fouquet (1661-1664), the decline of aristocratic largesse, and the subsequent centralization of artistic patronage around the personal reign of Louis XIV and the new administration of Colbert."

The Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith. The book offers one of the world's first collected descriptions of what builds nations' wealth, and is today a fundamental work in classical economics. By reflecting upon the economics at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the book touches upon such broad topics as the division of labor, productivity, and free markets. The Wealth of Nations was the product of seventeen years of notes and earlier works, as well as an observation of conversation among economists of the time concerning economic and societal conditions during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The result was a treatise which sought to offer a practical application for reformed economic theory to replace the mercantilist and physiocratic economic theories that were becoming less relevant in the time of industrial progress and innovation.

Welcome to the3 Books To Knowseries, our idea is to help readers learn about fascinating topics through three essential and relevant books. These carefully selected works can be fiction, non-fiction, historical documents or even biographies. We will always select for you three great works to instigate your mind, this time the topic is:Capitalism An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith. Published in 1776, the book offers one of the world's first collected descriptions of what builds nations' wealth, and is today a fundamental work in classical economics. By reflecting upon the economics at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the book touches upon such broad topics as the division of labour, productivity, and free markets. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, written by Max Weber, a German sociologist, economist, and politician. It is considered a founding text in economic sociology and sociology in general. Weber wrote that capitalism in Northern Europe evolved when the Protestant ethic influenced people to engage in the secular world, developing enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of wealth. In other words, the Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated emergence of modern capitalism. North and South is a social novel published in 1855 by English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. North and South uses a protagonist from southern England to present and comment on the perspectives of mill owners and workers in an industrialising city. The novel exposes the complexity of labor relations and their impact on mill owners and workers. This is one of many books in the series 3 Books To Know. If you liked this book, look for the other titles in the series, we are sure you will like some of the topics.

The Wealth of Nations, is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith. By reflecting upon the economics at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the book touches upon such broad topics as the division of labour, productivity, and free markets. The Wealth of Nations is the second most cited book in the social sciences published before 1950, behind Karl Marx's Das Kapital.