The Accidental Theorist

One option: assume that there is no one book that can serve as an intro to economics (I haven't found one yet) and start learning the subject be reading the 3 great classical economists: Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Karl Marx. All 3 were geniuses who had many brilliant insights. And all 3 were wrong in a similar fundemental way because they didn't fully grasp the concept of value. Personally I've found overviews (ie "The Wordly Philosophers") to be useless for real learning. What I've found instead is that when really smart people are wrong, their wrongness (how and why they are wrong) is just as instructive as when they are right. If not more so. Once you understand classical economics then learn about the marginal revolution. Follow that by reading Keynes and Von Mises simultaneously. Almost every notable economist of the last 50 years is, in some form, an intellectual descendent of either Keynes or the Austrians (Von Mises and Hayek). Perhaps directly or one of Keynes -> Galbraith or Austrians -> Chicago School (Milton Friedman).…