No way, I thought, when I saw this book on a library shelf, that I would be interested in this "history of economic genius". While the field of economics interests me, the vagaries of famed economists not so much.

But I was captivated from the start, from the opening chapter on Dickens and Malthus, and the inception of economic thinking, which today, we all take for granted (even if we equate all|most economists as indistinguishable from nincompoops). Nasar references *A Farewell to Alms* by Gregory Clark, for which is still percolating in my mind. From there, she launches into chapters on Marx and Engels, Alfred Marshall, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Schumpeter, Keynes, Hayek, Joan Robinson, Friedman and some other notable economists. By the time I got to Keynes and WWII, my enthusiasm for Nasar's project dimmed a tad. It is a remarkable work and Nasar brilliantly connects the economist pieces, but the book, I feel, suffers from a personality disorder -- it spends more words on the personal innuendo in these mini-biographies than "genius", as the title would suggest. We are given many glimpses into Beatrice Webb's diaries and love life disappointments and even "daddy" pop-psychology. We are told of the flamboyant, profligate lifestyle of Keynes and Schumpeter, and the prostitues that adorned them. And while the author is a gifted wordsmith and professional in her craft, she does heap quite a bit of scorn on Marx, maybe not undeserved, but it does veer out of the consistency in coverage of the other characters.