The response to my book has been an overwhelmingly positive. I always knew it would divide opinion. Alex De Waal did perhaps provide the most encouraging and ringing support with a review titled “Liberating African Economic History from the Tyranny of Econometrics”
Africa: Why Economists Get it Wrong is a slender but important book. It is a charter for liberating African economic policymaking from the tyranny of econometricians.
Ian Scoones, Jeff Bloem, and Ken Opalo all wrote very nice reviews, and Opalo summarized it neatly in a tweet:
If you haven’t read @Mjerven‘s latest book, here’s why you should | http://t.co/U07GtPLctH #DevelopmentEconomics #EconomicHistory
— Ken Opalo (@kopalo) June 25, 2015
I was thrilled to see that the Economist reviewed it and followed up by a nice set of tweets.
Economists who study Africa use dodgy theory and inappropriate statistical techniques http://t.co/Te5Ah62i1m pic.twitter.com/D4AXj8DWt3
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) July 28, 2015
How do economists talk about Africa? A new book pulls no punches http://t.co/GlQheqCjnU pic.twitter.com/w63xk3dmfl
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) July 28, 2015
I wrote something about the book for New African Magazine. If you want a taste of the introduction – go here – if you need to read an excerpt of the conclusion – click this – and if you want to hear me talk about the book you can pick between Owen Barder at Development Drums or Russ Roberts at Econtalk.