Appelbaum...writes lucidly about a number of connected subjects: the content of economics scholarship during the postwar era, the highly interpersonal and institution-specific story of how particular ideas and individuals came to have influence with those in power, and, most strikingly, how economists came to enter policymaking and insinuate themselves into the governing class ... The result is a convincing historical interpretation that shows both the origins and consequences of economists’ most self-serving myths ... No one has told this whole story, operating over multiple economic subfields, as well as Appelbaum. In fact, Appelbaum’s assiduousness with the sources and the thoroughness of his footnotes means that the book will be of some use even to the scholarly community, since very few have such facility spanning all the domains that Appelbaum covers. But it is exactly because Appelbaum’s book is so good and so convincing that I fear his subjects will find reason to denounce it rather than take seriously what it has to say.

Appelbaum does have an ax to grind, but unsheathes it only occasionally, usually to offer cutting one-sentence dismissals of particularly dubious claims by economists. His book is a marvel of popular historical writing, propelled by anecdotes and just the right amount of explanation but also impressively well grounded in the latest academic research by historians, sociologists and others. Much of the territory it covers was familiar to me, but I was constantly learning new twists and nuances.

It is a tale that has been told before, but Appelbaum adds flesh to the narrative by recounting it through the lives and careers of a small group of economists associated with the University of Chicago ... [a] lively and entertaining chronicle ... The Economists’ Hour should help to dispel the myth that economists are invariably dull ... The Economists’ Hour is a reminder of the power of ideas to shape the course of history, a heartening thought for those of us in the ideas business.

...vibrant, trenchant ... The Economists’ Hour...vividly narrates the advance of Friedman and his peers out of academia and into the marbled corridors of Washington, D.C. ... Appelbaum paints a lavish group portrait, from the famous, such as Paul Volcker and Arthur Laffer, to more obscure figures, among them Walter Oi and George Stigler ... To those familiar with Appelbaum’s Twitter feed, his sense of humor is whimsical, leavening the dense history and reflected here in headings such as 'Bubble Trouble' and 'Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There.' The Economists’ Hour tacks back and forth across the decades, occasionally diffusing the force and clarity of his storytelling ... Appelbaum’s conclusion is stirring, as he brings a moral purpose to the inequity that plagues our politics today[.]

... provides a novel perspective on the conservative revolution that dominated the past half-century of American political history. As a history of ideas, however, it places the spotlight on individual intellectuals rather than the interest groups and organizations that underlay (and underwrote) the free-market paradigm. The think tanks that industrialized the Friedmanesque critique of 1960s liberalism receive little attention, along with the funders who bankrolled the whole enterprise. It is rarely the most brilliant ideas that have the most impact but rather those that serve powerful interests with the resources necessary to propagate and weaponize them in the political landscape.

Few are better suited to tell the story than Appelbaum ... Appelbaum’s writing brings refreshing clarity to monetary policy, floating currency exchange rates and modern international trade—complicated topics all ... This book will do little to convince the economists, of course, but provides a refreshing tonic for the rest of us.

...[a] fine book ... Appelbaum’s strength is that he generally acknowledges...complexities. He is happy to state at the outset that market-oriented reforms have lifted billions out of poverty, and to recognize that the deregulation that helped undo Berle-ism was not some kind of right-wing plot ... But Appelbaum makes it his mission to highlight instances where the market mind-set went awry. Inequality has grown to unacceptable extremes in highly developed economies ... Appelbaum wisely [doesn't] pretend there are easy solutions ... At the close of his book, Appelbaum presents a series of persuasive recommendations [.]

This structure causes the book to feel like a recurring nightmare that differs only slightly upon each retelling. First, everything is fine in the sunny fields of the booming post-war era and then somehow you’re back in today’s fetid austerity swamps ... jogs down many, if not all, of the well-worn, crowded paths in the forest of recent economic history: the Volcker Shock, the abandonment of Bretton-Woods, financialization of mortgages, Pinochet’s neoliberal repression in Chile, deregulation of air travel, the list goes on. They are all deftly told. Appelbaum duly mentions the failures of these myriad economic policies ... But in Appelbaum’s concluding chapter, his analysis sags. He offers few solutions, aside from a few sentences on the importance of labor unions in counterbalancing the power of corporations. But maybe this makes sense. Appelbaum is something of a creature of the system that economics built...This, in some ways, explains where the book fails to deliver. Appelbaum, like most of us, stands in the vast shadow of the economists’ monolithic, totalizing, yet inaccessible ideology. But buried in the book are germs of truly useful ideas.

The Economists’ Hour” is a work of journalism rather than polemic. It is a well reported and researched history of the ways in which plucky economists helped rewrite policy in America and Europe and across emerging markets ... Could a band of social scientists really wreak so much havoc? Mr Appelbaum’s book places economists at the centre of the story, but they were often mere accomplices to a broader movement of conservatives determined to reverse the encroachment of the state ... Rather than being the tale of an academic discipline’s unlikely rise to influence, Mr Appelbaum’s book can be seen as an account of the easy ascent of a few ideas that appealed to the wealthy and powerful.

...a thoughtful history ... This work offers an intelligent assessment of free-market thought in modern times and the resultant policies and should prove of interest to those interested in public policy

... a new book based on a false but popular premise, buttressed often (but not entirely) by examples that do not support his thesis, and is oversaturated with fanciful anecdotes, often at the expense of analysis ... really a new screed in a long line of literature railing against what is referred to as ‘the neoliberal consensus' ... Appelbaum clearly read a great deal of secondary literature and amassed a litany of anecdotes and biographical details, both scholarly and personal. This is often entertaining to those already familiar with the personalities, and sometimes informative to those who aren’t ... Unfortunately, even early on some of these details reveal Appelbaum’s own ignorance. This undermines his credibility as an author criticizing what he characterizes a homogenous field ... we can’t say that there isn’t a conversation to be had here. Appelbaum simply exchanges it for an attack on the market and some of its major proponents. The role of economists in government is well worth exploring, and often has not been for the betterment of society. It is also true that the field needs to look inward with greater skepticism than it has since World War Two. But the problem with Binyamin Appelbaum’s new book The Economists’ Hour is that his primary concern doesn’t appear to be that the government is staffed with economists, but that it isn’t pursuing the policies and ends he would prefer.

Writing in accessible language of thorny fiscal matters, the author ventures into oddly fascinating corners of recent economic history ... Anyone who wonders why government officials still take the Laffer curve seriously need go no further than this lucid book.

New York Times correspondent Appelbaum, who won a George Polk Award for his subprime lending reporting, intelligently chronicles the unprecedented influence of economists on public policy ... This thoroughly researched, comprehensive, and critical account of the economic philosophies that have reigned for the past half century powerfully indicts them.