New Literary Romance

I’ve been struck by what a lost treasure is Essential of Economics by Faustino Ballve. For the person just getting oriented, it makes an excellent 2nd book after Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. The book came out in the mid 1960s and stayed in print for some years, but then vanished for no good reason. This new edition is very beautiful and the text itself holds up marvelously well. It is organized into ten lessons of economics. The prose is stable, clean, and always interesting. It is not too long either, and none of it seems dated. In my view, it would make a great book to give to someone who is wondering what all the fuss about economics really is. And many economists (such as the NYT columnist whose name starts with K) could learn from it too. It seems like we are forever looking for good introductory texts. This one is especially appealing. I can easily see it as useful in a 101 class, for example, or for high school students. Here is an online version to look through, and here it is in the store. Part of what might otherwise limit this book’s marketability is that the author is unknown. It seems to be his only work -- in English in any case. He was a professor from Spain who was teaching in Mexico when Mises came to visit. He just went wild for the Misesian point of view, and carried on a long correspondence with Mises. This book was the result. It really does make an excellent addition to a great library.