Exploring Economics: A Comprehensive Guide to 'Eat the Rich'

Carlick: O’Rourke is hugely funny, and humor has a funny way of revealing truth. His tour of economies (a bit reminiscent of What Country Ti Invade Next) is worth pondering. His thinking is distorted slightly by his bias to democracy, but the book is about economics and makes a good point for the benefits of capitalism and free markets.

United States on Apr 22, 2023

and_or: No hyperbole. It's all there along with PJ's signature writing style. You will exhale strongly several time during the course of this book.

Wry, witty, and insightful, PJ looks at various socioeconomic systems by visiting various socioeconomic systems and offering his observations.

Good book for anyone with an interest in economics, travel, or humor.

United States on Apr 06, 2023

SURESH: Incredibly critical yet humorous and informative, all at the same time!

India on Jan 05, 2019

Yashwanth: Extremely funny!

India on Oct 05, 2018

AKM: Not funny at all, for my liking.

United Kingdom on Sep 21, 2015

Kevin Babb: I gave O'Rourke's book to my early-college aged daughter as part of her introduction to classical free market economics, along with Niall Ferguson's "The Ascent of Money" and Milton and Rose Friedman's "Free to Choose". I first read this book when it was new, and it continues to offer a winsome and accessible explanation of the principles underlining free market capitalism. As is typical someone who started his journalistic career as a writer for National Lampoon, O'Rourke's writing can be as profane as it is profound, and sometimes comes across as though it was written by a college sophomore--but one who has an extraordinary grasp of economic realities. I would not recommend it as the last word one would read for an apologia of classical economics, but it provides a good framework for later studies in more, shall we say, serious works. The last chapter alone is worth the price of admission.

United States on Sep 04, 2015

Rachy: Don't read this book unless you have time to waste. It's funny, interesting, gives a short tour of Russia, China, Hong Kong, Albania, Cuba, etc. in 1996-7, takes a long time to review the positives and negatives of capitalism, includes a lot of foul language and the wrap up is negligible. You'd be better off reading one chapter of "The Law" by Frederic Bastiat.

United States on Aug 15, 2015

Kimberley Mitchell: P.J. O'Rourke uses this book to address the question of what makes some countries' economies work for the benefit and wealth of the citizens and what makes some fail so miserably, leaving the majority of the population in a hideous poverty. He visits a good handful of countries around the world (e.g. the US, Sweden, Hong Kong and Cuba) in an attempt to find some patterns and reach some sensible conclusions. I loved the detailed descriptions of what he found in each country, his assessment of the economic environment and examples of the hardships and benefits that he found. I was less enamored of his conclusions, which seemed to be predetermined before the book was even envisioned and were arrived at whether the evidence supported them or not (in the case of Sweden for example). But humans are fallible and the point of view of an intelligent human being traveling the world, trying to make some sense of it, while in no way pretending to be an expert was so entertaining and directly challenging that the experience of reading the book was a delight.
As a warning to my fellow liberals, there were some rather nasty and snide comments about the Clintons, but they...

United States on Sep 21, 2001