Economics in Two Lessons: Acknowledgements

Nearly seven years after I started, I’ve finally submitted the manuscript of Economics in Two Lessons to Princeton University Press. There’s still a lot of work to be done in turning it into a published book, and some changes are still needed, but this is as close to a milestone as I’m going to get.

Over the fold are the Acknowledgements. As I mention, I’m sure to have omitted someone, so if you have contributed comments and your name is missing, please point this out. Also, if there’s anyone commenting under a pseudonym who’d like me to use their real name, or vice versa, I’ll be happy to make the change.

The idea for this book was suggested to me back in 2011 by Seth Ditchik, my publisher at Princeton University Press, encouraged by PUP Director Peter Dougherty. Like many books, it was a long time in the writing, so long that both Seth and Peter had moved on by the time I finally had my ideas straight. Sarah Caro, who picked up the project in 2016, gave me the encouragement and prodding I needed to turn my scrappy draft into a final manuscript. I thank Seth, Peter and Sarah for making this book happen.

I thank Roger Backhouse and another anonymous reader for PUP for their enthusiastic reaction to the book and useful suggestions for improvements. I also received valuable comments and positive feedback from academic colleagues including Max Corden, Simon Grant, Raja Junankar, Jacob Hacker and Flavio Menezes.

In addition to these traditional sources of feedback, I posted excerpts from the book on my blog johnquiggin.com and on the academic group blog crookedtimber.org. I got so many useful responses in different media, some under pseudonyms, that I am sure to miss some. Undeterred by this, I will thank ‘Anarcho’, ‘Anarcissie’, Rob Banks, Stephen Bartos, Jim Birch, Graeme Bird, Mark Brady, ‘ccc’, ‘CDT’, ’DCA”, ‘Cervantes’, Harry Clarke, Paul Davis, Tim Dymond, ‘Equalitus’, Kenny Easwaran, Geoff Edwards, Mike Furlan, Mike Haines, Christian Haesemeyer, Nicholas Haines, Nigel Harden, H. Horan, Sebastian Holsclaw, Hugo, ‘Ikonoclast’, ’J-D’, ‘Keshav’ Ian Kirkegaard, ‘LFC’, Peter Ludemann, Greg McKenzie, Robert Merkel, Zoe Mithen, ‘Nastywoman’ Mark Nelson, ‘Newtownian’, Peter T, ‘Plasmaatron’, Philip, Greg Pius, Quentin Reynolds, ‘Richie Rich’, David Richardson, G.B. Robinson, ‘Sandwichman’, Matthew Smedberg, Scott P.,Simon, Smith, ‘stostosto’, ‘Tabasco’, Val, Robert Vienneau, Bruce Wilder and James Wimberley, with apologies to those I’ve inevitably left out.

Special thanks go to three readers. My longstanding colleague David Adamson, gave me comments on all the chapters. Mike Huben read and commented in detail on all the chapters and also pointed me to useful links on his Critiques of Libertarianism site http://critiques.us/index.php?title=Critiques_Of_Libertarianism. Most of all, my beloved wife and colleague Nancy Wallace brought both her training as an editor and her skills as a critical reader to bear on the book, catching lots of errors and never letting me get away with a sloppy argument. Without her love and support, I could never have finished this book.