Like the acclaimed MENDELEYEV'S DREAM, this is a genuinely accessible introduction to an apparently difficult, yet essential, subject.

An elegant and entertaining account of the lives, times and ideas of the great economists - men like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes who were fascinating characters as well as influential thinkers. Strathern also introduces a host of lesser-known figures whose theories were as eccentric as they were - medieval monks obsessed with the maths of gambling; crackpot academics; an alleged murderer who controlled France's finances; and, of course, Dr Strangelove himself, John von Neumann, the crippled, crazed genius who invented game theory.