The Greatest Books of All Time on Economics

Click to learn how this list is calculated.

This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 759 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.

View: List Grid Table
Filter by: Genres Dates Countries

Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
173 A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf 1929 British English
183 The Jungle Upton Sinclair 1906 American English
185 U.S.A. Trilogy John Dos Passos 1930 American English
319 The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money John Maynard Keynes 1936 British English
324 Communist Manifesto Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels 1848 German German
328 Das Kapital Karl Marx 1867 German German
461 Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand 1957 American English
492 The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Robert Tressell, Peter Miles 1914 British English
506 The Affluent Society John Kenneth Galbraith 1958 American English
527 The Social Contract Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1762 French French
531 The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith 1776 Scottish English
553 The Dispossessed Ursula K. Le Guin 1974 American English
570 American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis 1991 American English
664 Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy Joseph A. Schumpeter 1942 Austrian English
813 Cranford Elizabeth Gaskell 1851 British English
870 Economy and Society Max Weber 1922 German German
911 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism Max Weber 1905 German German
1147 Dialectic Of Enlightenment Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer 1944 German German
1170 Capitalism and Freedom Milton Friedman 1962 American English
1204 Nickel And Dimed Barbara Ehrenreich 2001 American English
1211 Normal People Sally Rooney 2018 Irish English
1252 Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari 2011 Israeli Hebrew
1320 God and Man at Yale William F. Buckley, Jr 1951 American English
1441 The Cantos Ezra Pound 1933 American English
1447 Minima Moralia Theodor Adorno 1951 German German
1477 An Essay on the Principle of Population Thomas Robert Malthus 1798 British English
1729 Requiem for a Dream Hubert Selby 1978 American English
1763 Small Is Beautiful E. F. Schumacher 1973 British English
1784 Marks of Identity Juan Goytisolo 1966 Spanish Spanish
1872 To the Finland Station Edmund Wilson 1940 American English
1915 A Modest Proposal and Other Satirical Works Jonathan Swift 1729 Irish English
2070 The Age of Reform Richard Hofstadter 1955 American English
2089 Parkinson's Law C. Northcote Parkinson 1957 British English
2367 The Arcades Project Walter Benjamin 1982 German German
2381 Battle Cry of Freedom James M. McPherson 1988 American English
2417 The Age of Jackson Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr 1945 American English
2471 Roll, Jordan, Roll Eugene Genovese 1974 American English
2518 The American Way of Death Jessica Mitford 1963 American English
2626 Capital in the Twenty-First Century Thomas Piketty 2013 French French
2627 Selected Plays of George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw 1976 Irish English
2663 Debit And Credit Gustav Freytag 1855 German German
2685 The Managerial Revolution James Burnham 1941 American English
2698 Cod Mark Kurlansky 1997 American English
2894 Teahouse Lao She 1957 Chinese Chinese
2897 Moneyball Michael M. Lewis 2003 American English
2900 Cremation Rafael Chirbes 2007 Spanish Spanish
2951 Exit, Voice, And Loyalty Albert Hirschman 1970 American English
2961 Au Bonheur Des Dames Émile Zola 1883 French French
3102 Super Sad True Love Story Gary Shteyngart 2010 American English
3205 The Prize Daniel Yergin 1991 American English
3233 Freakonomics Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner 2005 American English
3293 Looking Backward, 2000 1887 Edward Bellamy 1888 American English
3421 The Shock Doctrine Naomi Klein 2007 Canadian English
3427 The Great Transformation Karl Polanyi 1944 Canadian English
3518 Bureaucracy Ludwig von Mises 1944 Austrian English
3525 Strange Defeat Marc Bloch 1946 French French
3564 The Beggars' Strike Aminata Sow Fall 1979 Senegalese French
3595 Thick Tressie McMillan Cottom 2019 American English
3601 Debt David Graeber 2011 American English
3638 Der Moderne Kapitalismus Werner Sombart 1902 German German
3952 The End of History and the Last Man Francis Fukuyama 1992 American English
4157 The Assemblywomen Aristophanes -391 Greek Ancient greek
4168 The History of the Standard Oil Company Ida Tarbell 1904 American English
4420 Guide To Kulchur Ezra Pound 1938 American English
4458 The Truly Disadvantaged William Julius Wilson 1987 American English
4498 The Rise And Fall Of The Great Powers Paul Kennedy 1987 British English
4581 A Theory Of The Consumption Function Milton Friedman 1957 American English
4620 Rising Tide John Barry 1997 American English
4623 The Party Richard McGregor 2010 Unknown English
4627 The Opium War Julia Lovell 2011 British English
4718 I'll Take My Stand Twelve Southerners 1930 American English
4752 Origins of the New South C. Vann Woodward 1951 American English
4852 The American Political Tradition Richard Hofstadter 1948 American English
4869 Human Action Ludwig von Mises 1949 Austrian English
4899 The Discovery Of Freedom Rose Wilder Lane 1943 American English
4990 The Black Swan Nassim Nicholas Taleb 2007 Lebanese English
5006 Against the Day Thomas Pynchon 2006 American English
5035 Black Reconstruction In America W. E. B. Du Bois 1935 American English
5265 Accumulation On A World Scale Samir Amin 1970 French French
5369 The Way the World Works Jude Wanniski 1978 American English
5522 Mao's China And After Maurice Meisner 1977 American English
5605 Superhighway--superhoax Helen Leavitt 1970 American English
5605 The Imperative Of Responsibility Hans Jonas 1979 German German
5618 Wealth and Poverty George Gilder 1981 American English
5704 The Sum Of Us Heather McGhee 2021 American English
5936 The Turning Point Fritjof Capra 1982 American English
5983 Maximum City Suketu Mehta 2004 American English
6002 A History Of Greece To The Death Of Alexander The Great John Bagnell Bury 1900 British English
6099 Unity And Struggle Amilcar Cabral 1979 Guinean Portuguese
6162 Present at the Creation Dean Acheson 1969 American English
6210 Doppelganger Naomi Klein 2023 Canadian English
6260 Economics Paul Samuelson 1947 American English
6292 Oracle Bones Peter Hessler 2006 American English
6323 The New Kings Of Nonfiction Ira Glass 2007 American English
6329 Religion And The Rise Of Capitalism R. H. Tawney 1926 British English
6334 The Worldly Philosophers Robert Heilbroner 1953 American English
6336 Centesimus Annus Pope John Paul II 1991 Vatican City Latin
6371 The Promise of American Life Herbert Croly 1909 American English
6442 Eaarth Bill McKibben 2010 American English
6476 Second World War John Keegan 1989 British English
6517 Free to Choose Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman 1980 American English
6572 Combats Pour L'histoire Lucien Febvre 1953 French French
6575 Crashed Adam Tooze 2018 British English
6609 The Russian Revolution Richard Pipes 1990 American English
6670 Future Shock Alvin Toffler 1980 American English
6733 The Poverty of Power Barry Commoner 1976 American English
6794 An Analysis Of The Communist System Milovan Djilas 1957 Serbian Serbo-croatian
6794 Models Of Man, Social And Rational Herbert Simon 1957 American English
6882 The Haunted Land Tina Rosenberg 1995 American English
6957 The Fifth Risk Michael M. Lewis 2018 American English
6969 Six Studies In Communism Arthur Koestler, Richard Crossman 1960 Multiple English
6969 The End Of Ideology Daniel Bell 1960 American English
6995 Contours of American History William Appleman Williams 1961 American English
7215 Unto This Last John Ruskin 1860 British English
7572 The House of Morgan Ron Chernow 1990 American English
7588 Moo Jane Smiley 1995 American English
7595 Wealth And Power Orville Schell, John Delury 2013 Chinese English
7632 When The Clock Broke John Ganz 2024 Unknown English
7750 Critical Mass Philip Ball 2004 British English
7751 The Age of Surveillance Capitalism Shoshana Zuboff 2019 American English