Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers
Tim is an economist, journalist and broadcaster. He is author of “The Next Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy”, “Messy”, and the million-selling “The Undercover Economist”. Tim is a senior columnist at the Financial Times, and the presenter of Radio 4’s “More or Less”, the iTunes-topping series “Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy”, and the new podcast “Cautionary Tales”. Tim has spoken at TED, PopTech and the Sydney Opera House. He is an associate member of Nuffield College, Oxford and an honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. Tim was made an OBE for services to improving economic understanding in the New Year honours of 2019.
“Endlessly insightful and full of surprises – exactly what you would expect from Tim Harford.”
Bill Bryson
“Packed with fascinating detail… Harford has an engagingly wry style and his book is a superb introduction to some of the most vital products of human ingenuity.”
The Sunday Times
“It’s a very very good book, full of wise counterintuitions and clever insights.”
Brian Eno
“Every Tim Harford book is cause for celebration. He makes the ‘dismal science’ seem like an awful lot of fun.”
Malcolm Gladwell
“In a world that craves certainty, Harford makes a compelling case for why we can’t have it. A brilliant and oddly empowering book.”
Dave Gorman
“The very best letters from the ‘Dear Economist’ columns from 2003-2008 in one handy book-sized package.”
“As lively as it is smart, charming, penetrating, and wise. If you are at all interested in knowing much more than you do about how the world works, you couldn’t ask for a better guide than Harford.”
Stephen J. Dubner
“This book should be required reading for every elected official, business leader, and university student.”
Steven D. Levitt
https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?p=CAD6536215675 (Self promotion: the paperback of How To Make the World Add Up is now out worldwide (except North America). Please consider an early order, which is disproportionately helpful in winning interest and support for...
Like the uninspired sermon-writer who finds a way to link everything to Jesus, some commentators find a way to link everything to climate change. In December, an editorial in The Lancet medical journal on Covid-19 and climate change announced that “the causes of both...
Publication week! How To Make The World Add Up is out in paperback this week everywhere except North America. I understand that we're on the cusp of the bestseller list in the UK, which would be a Big Deal in terms of winning attention for the book - so if you have...
Some people believe the most extraordinary things. Earth is flat, and airplane GPS is rigged to fool pilots into thinking otherwise. COVID-19 vaccines are a pretext to inject thought-controlling microchips into us all. The true president of the United States is Donald...
Blowing the whistle on wrongdoing risks your job, your friends and even your life. So why do it? Financial expert Ray Dirks (played by Jeffrey Wright) exposed one of the biggest corporate crimes of all time - and yet he was the one who ended up in front of the Supreme...
“What does not kill me makes me stronger.” Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s aphorism is inspiring — although as anyone suffering from long Covid can tell you, it is not always true. Sometimes what does not kill you just makes you weaker. Does Nietzsche’s maxim apply...
The Scout Mindset. I eagerly awaited The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef, a superb interviewer and a throughgoing disciple of the path of rationality. Galef is interested in being right, finding the truth, and all the ways in which we mislead ourselves. I was expecting,...
Why parents, politicians and doctors would be wiser to sometimes do nothing. Lady Sale (played by Helena Bonham Carter) was part of a bloody and ignominious British retreat from Afghanistan in 1842. The arrogant colonial invaders had thought intervening in Afghan...
Wrinkles and grey hairs notwithstanding, I must be younger than I had assumed. Sixty per cent of the adult population of the UK have been vaccinated with at least one dose, but your columnist is not old enough to be one of them. Who knew? This means I still have...