Economic Principals: Masters and Mavericks of Modern Economics.

• Author: Silber, Kenneth

Economists, as a class, are not the most popular people in the world. Often they are seen as out-of-touch theoreticians, absorbed in mathematical calculations and oblivious to real human needs. Economists come under regular assault from environmentalists (who denounce them for pointing out the costs of environmental regulation), from protectionists (who decry their advocacy of free trade), from their academic rivals in a variety of disciplines, and from journalists. Every few years, somebody writes an article proposing that the

Nobel Prize for economics be abolished. For a more sympathetic treatment of the profession, turn to David Warsh, a columnist for The Boston Globe. In Economic Principals, a collection of his weekly columns, Warsh seems determined to give a fair hearing to a wide range of economists--living and dead, famous and obscure, free-market and statist. Indeed, frequently he is too reverent, showcasing a given economist's ideas while making only a halfhearted effort at skeptical, journalistic scrutiny.

Warsh is a good-natured guide, cheerfully leading the reader through even some of the more difficult terrain of economic thought. His subject matter extends beyond those formally in the field, taking in a variety of non-economists who have contributed, in some form or another, to economic debate. These include business-school gurus, financial-market types, historians, the occasional philosopher or computer expert, and even Oliver Stone (whose Wall Street and other films are castigated in an uncharacteristically angry Warsh essay). In general, Warsh is gentle in his treatment of those whom he profiles, occasionally indulging them with quotes that run for paragraphs at a time.

There is little ideology, and much intellectual agnosticism, in Economic Principals. Warsh sometimes seems to agree with whomever he last interviewed and often appears intent on finding a reasonable middle ground between conflicting arguments. He has kind words for such disparate economists as James M. Buchanan and John Kenneth Galbraith, but he criticizes the writers of a Commentary symposium for providing "an oil-and-vinegar array of extremes." Karl Marx and Frederic Bastiat, polar opposites in 19th-century economic thought, both are extolled for their modern-day relevance. Was supply-side economics a "shabby little insurrection" or an important intellectual development? Depends which of Warsh's chapters you're reading.

Most of the columns were written in...