Product Description

Life sometimes seems illogical. Individuals do strange things: take drugs, have unprotected sex, mug each other. Love seems irrational, and so does divorce. On a larger scale, life seems no fairer or easier to fathom: Why do some neighborhoods thrive and others become ghettos? Why is racism so persistent? Why is your idiot boss paid a fortune for sitting behind a mahogany altar? Thorny questions–and you might be surprised to hear the answers coming from an economist.

But Tim Harford, award-winning journalist and author of the bestseller The Undercover Economist, likes to spring surprises. In this deftly reasoned book, Harford argues that life is logical after all. Under the surface of everyday insanity, hidden incentives are at work, and Harford shows these incentives emerging in the most unlikely places.

Using tools ranging from animal experiments to supercomputer simulations, an ambitious new breed of economist is trying to unlock the secrets of society. The Logic of Life is the first book to map out the astonishing insights and frustrating blind spots of this new economics in a way that anyone can enjoy.

The Logic of Life presents an X-ray image of human life, stripping away the surface to show us a picture that is revealing, enthralling, and sometimes disturbing. The stories that emerge are not about data or equations but about people: the athlete who survived a shocking murder attempt, the computer geek who beat the hard-bitten poker pros, the economist who defied Henry Kissinger and faked an invasion of Berlin, the king who tried to buy off a revolution.
Once you’ve read this quotable and addictive book, life will never look the same again.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #781 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-15
• Released on: 2008-01-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Amazon.com Review
A Message to Amazon Readers from Author Tim Harford

Give yourself a pat on the back. You're not as stupid as everyone says you are, and now there's a book that proves it.

When I first conceived of The Logic of Life, my aim was to show that a world full of smart people--people like you, that is--doesn’t necessarily look logical on the surface. We eat too much and worry about being fat; drink too much and cringe when we remember; spend too much at Christmas and worry about the bills in New Year. And that’s just the small stuff: what about crime, racial segregation, divorce, big-money politics?

And yet underneath it all there is a hidden logic. It isn’t always pretty, but it’s there if you know how to see it. That is what The Logic of Life is all about.

But when I'd finished the first draft, my editor told me that he didn't think that people were as logical as I'd said. He wanted me to prove my point.

At first, I thought it was my editor thinks people are illogical because he works in the publishing business. Of course life looks illogical if you do that. (In fact, life looks crazy in most offices: see "Why Your Boss is Overpaid," chapter four.) But then I realised he was right. I'd left the most important step out.

So I went back and made sure that I laid out all the amazing evidence. I looked at single women hitting the dating scene in American cities; I looked at juvenile delinquents across the US; I looked at Mexican prostitutes; I looked at traders at a convention in Disney World; I looked at professional poker players in Las Vegas and professional soccer players in Europe. I looked at violent spouses, alcoholics, and school bullies.

In every case I discovered a story of hidden incentives and unexpected logic. And through the process of writing--and living--the book, I discovered that this crazy world of ours makes more sense than you might think.

From Publishers Weekly
Financial Times and Slate.com columnist Harford (The Undercover Economist) provides an entertaining and provocative look at the logic behind the seemingly irrational. Arguing that rational behavior is more widespread than most people expect, Harford uses economic principles to draw forth the rational elements of gambling, the teenage oral sex craze, crime and other supposedly illogical behaviors to illustrate his larger point. Utilizing John von Neumann and Thomas Schelling's conceptions of game theory, Harford applies their approach to a multitude of arenas, including marriage, the workplace and racism. Contrarily, he also shows that individual rational behavior doesn't always lead to socially desired outcomes. Harford concludes with how to apply this thinking on an even bigger scale, showing how rational behavior shapes cities, politics and the entire history of human civilization. Well-written with highly engaging stories and examples, this book will be of great interest to Freakonomics and Blink fans as well as anyone interested in the psychology of human behavior. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
The spry narration of L.J. Ganser keeps this audiobook moving as author Tim Harford, a British economist, seeks to prove how cold-hearted economic concerns permeate myriad aspects of life. That topic would be dull in the hands of a lesser writer, but Harford favors examples that catch the imagination, such as a classroom experiment that shed light on how racism can arise "rationally." Harford is British, and half his examples involve London, so a British narrator would have been appropriate. But Ganser, an American, was a fine choice. His self-assured, energetic, and occasionally bemused delivery is a good match for Harford's breezy writing style. E.D.R. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

Thought provoking
Offers a slightly different perspective for understanding human behavior. I vastly prefer Harford's writing style to others in the genre. I don't care so much if we are labeled as rational or irrational, it seems to be a less relevant point to me. In fact, I would argue that the rational results he claims are inductive, not deductive, so they do not correspond with the logical thinking process that tends to accompany deductive reasoning. He doesn't claim that they do, it's just that there seems to be a silly argument out there about whether we are rational or not. I don't think it matters, as the means by which we come to a decision are varied.

Human are both logic and irational creature
The principle of the book is not very alien that human have logical and irrational qualities but the to use economics principle to explain many social phenomena is indeed intriguing

Disappointing.....a one trick pony
Tim Harford's "Logic Of Life" has only one point to make, that is, every decision one makes in everyday life is an economically rational one, whether one knows it or not. Imagine the subconscious mind working overtime making those minute calculations without the conscious mind knowing about it.

To illustrate the point, Harford opens with a titillating expose on the rising incidence of teenage oral sex in modern life before expanding his scope to include gambling, racism, crime, corporate remuneration, etc etc. Though moderately interesting in parts, I had a hard time finishing the book as the chapters got more and more mundane and further and further away from the point he was making. By the time I reached the three quarter mark, I was ready to give up.

I haven't read Harford's bestselling "The Undercover Economist" so I can't judge but "Logic Of Life" seems like pretty thin gruel. After a chuckle inducing opening, the book starts to read like a one trick pony. Disappointing.