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
Has there been a moment in modern history where so many people in free societies have believed such damaging lies? It’s easy to point to the US, where nearly 90 per cent of people who voted for Donald Trump believe Joe Biden’s election victory was not legitimate. No...
Is bionic duckweed a dire threat to our health and prosperity? It just might be. But lest you fear that it is a fresh torment to test us alongside Covid-19, wildfires and murder hornets, I should reassure you that it is not a Triffid-like killer plant. Bionic...
Will it ever end? In November, we were celebrating the announcement that the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine seemed to be highly effective against Covid-19, followed with bewildering speed by similar claims for the Sputnik V, Moderna and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines. Nearly...
Well, I don't know. But The Week kindly asked me to send a list of my 'best books' and I wasn't sure how to interpret the question. So here goes! Getting Things Done by Edwin Bliss. I stumbled upon this book a boy and it opened my mind to the then-radical idea that...
When Alexi Pappas and I realised we were releasing books at around the same time, she suggested that we do a book swap and send each other our books. What a good idea, especially since I probably read too much social science - and I'm a firm believer in a little...
The Center for Global Development does amazing, evidence-based work on one of the most important challenges in the world. I'm so flattered that they are hosting my first event, with Amanda Glassman in the chair. Noon, DC time, on 10 February. Wednesday 10th Feb I'm...
The Florence Nightingale Museum in London, devoted to the pioneering 19th-century nurse, is closing its doors, indefinitely. The museum director, David Green, describes the plan as “hibernation”; the collection will remain on site at St Thomas’s Hospital. The timing...
Chapter nine of "The Data Detective" / "How To Make The World Add Up" is all about data visualisation - its power, and its pitfalls. The overarching story is about how one woman launched a public health revolution, armed with a fancy pie chart. I'm fond of the chapter...
My book The Data Detective is out today in the US and Canada. (The same book is called How To Make The World Add Up elsewhere in the world.) To celebrate publication, Riverhead Books have teamed up with Pushkin Industries to release the final chapter of the audiobook...