SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance

Overview

he New York Times best-selling Freakonomics was a worldwide sensation, selling over four million copies in thirty-five languages and changing the way we look at the world. Now, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with SuperFreakonomics, and fans and newcomers alike will find that the freakquel is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first.

Four years in the making, SuperFreakonomics asks not only the tough questions, but the unexpected ones: What's more dangerous, driving drunk or walking drunk? Why is chemotherapy prescribed so often if it's so ineffective? Can a sex change boost your salary?

SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as:

* How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa?
* Why are doctors so bad at washing their hands?
* How much good do car seats do?
* What's the best way to catch a terrorist?
* Did TV cause a rise in crime?
* What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common?
* Are people hard-wired for altruism or selfishness?
* Can eating kangaroo save the planet?
* Which adds more value: a pimp or a Realtor?

Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else, whether investigating a solution to global warming or explaining why the price of oral sex has fallen so drastically. By examining how people respond to incentives, they show the world for what it really is - good, bad, ugly, and, in the final analysis, super freaky.

Freakonomics has been imitated many times over - but only now, with SuperFreakonomics, has it met its match.

Editorial Reviews

Economist Levitt and journalist Dubner capitalize on their megaselling Freakonomics with another effort to make the dismal science go gonzo. Freaky topics include the oldest profession (hookers charge less nowadays because the sexual revolution has produced so much free competition), money-hungry monkeys (yep, that involves prostitution, too) and the dunderheadedness of Al Gore. There's not much substance to the authors' project of applying economics to all of life. Their method is to notice some contrarian statistic (adult seat belts are as effective as child-safety seats in preventing car-crash fatalities in children older than two), turn it into "economics" by tacking on a perfunctory cost-benefit analysis (seat belts are cheaper and more convenient) and append a libertarian sermonette (governments "tend to prefer the costly-and-cumbersome route"). The point of these lessons is to bolster the economist's view of people as rational actors, altruism as an illusion and government regulation as a folly of unintended consequences. The intellectual content is pretty thin, but it's spiked with the crowd-pleasing provocations--"'A pimp's services are considerably more valuable than a realtor's'" --that spell bestseller. (Nov.)

Author Information

Bio of Steven D. Levitt

Steven D. Levitt is the Alvin H. Baum Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he is also director of The Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory. In 2004, he was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, which recognizes the most influential economist in America under the age of 40. More recently, he was named one of Time magazine's "100 People Who Shape Our World." Levitt received his B.A. from Harvard University in 1989, his Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1994, and has taught at the University of Chicago since 1997. He coauthored the bestselling book Freakonomics with Stephen J. Dubner.

Bio of Stephen J. Dubner

Stephen J. Dubner is an award-winning author and journalist who lives in New York City. He is the coauthor, with Steven D. Levitt, of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. He is also the author of Turbulent Souls: A Catholic Son's Return to His Jewish Family (1998), Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper (2003), and a children's book, The Boy with Two Belly Buttons (2007). Freakonomics, published in April 2005, instantly became an international bestseller, with more than 1.5 million copies sold in the U.S. alone. It won the inaugural Quill Award for best business book; was short-listed for the inaugural Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book Award; received a Visionary Award from the National Council on Economic Education; was a Book Sense Book of the Year; and was named a Notable Book of 2005 by the New York Times. Turbulent Souls was also named a Notable Book, and was a finalist for the Koret National Jewish Book Award. Turbulent Souls was reissued in late 2006 under a new title, Choosing My Religion. The eighth child of an upstate New York newspaperman, Dubner has been writing since he was a child. (His first published work appeared in Highlights magazine.) As an undergraduate at Appalachian State University, he started a rock band that was signed to Arista Records, which landed him in New York City. He ultimately quit playing music to earn an M.F.A. in writing at Columbia University, where he also taught in the English Department. From 1990to 1994, Dubner was an editor and writer at New York magazine. From 1994 to1999, he was an editor and writer for the New York Times magazine. He has also written for The New Yorker, Time, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. His journalism has been anthologized in The Best American Sports Writing and The Best American Crime Writing. He has also been a PBS correspondent, and is currently a regular contributor to ABC News, appearing monthly on Good Morning America and a segment of World News Tonight called "Freakonomics Friday." He and Steven Levitt also write a monthly "Freakonomics" column for the New York Times magazine, and they maintain a popular website, which has been called "the most readable economics blog in the universe." Dubner is now working on several book projects, including a second Freakonomics book with Steven Levitt as well as a book on Jewish ethics. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, the noted documentary photographer Ellen Binder, and their two children.

Customer Reviews

• Great Read

  Posted November 02, 2009 by Fergie, Edmonton

  Every part as good as the original Freakonomics.

Additional Info

Imprint

HarperCollins e-books

Filesize

1.62 MB

Number of Pages

416

eBook ISBN

9780061959936