The Accidental Theorist and Other Dispatches from the Dismal Science

This new book weaves together recent articles and addresses, some of them never before published, into a short, compelling narrative on the major issues of the late 1990s: unemployment, globalization, economic growth, financial speculation, and more. Some of the pieces start with current issues, like corporate downsizing or the crisis set off by monetary policy in Thailand, while others explode plausible-sounding ideas that happen to be false, like pinning the blame for our economic woes on the internationalization of commerce when the real culprit is a failure of resolve in domestic policy. All are joined by Krugman's characteristically clear-eyed view of the basic economics behind the issues and by the wit and energy with which he applies those principles.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction, Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.