This book is not a compact version of the conventional economics principles text. More modestly, Dasgupta (Univ. of Cambridge) attempts to convey an understanding of the reasoning used by economists to interpret the world and influence public policy. Explanations and forecasts, crafted with the aid of models and statistics, illustrate economists' methods in analyzing economic growth and development over the broad sweep of macroeconomic history. The author presents microeconomic analysis, in game theoretic terms, as an effort by individuals and communities to engage in mutually beneficial transactions. Some of these transactions occur in markets, to which a brief chapter is devoted. Others are enabled by an array of social institutions, including governmental institutions, which often resolve market failures or provide alternatives to market outcomes. The final third of the book covers bits of finance economics, social choice theory, and a relatively lengthy, speculative interpretation of sustainable economic development. Overall, this is an engaging, idiosyncratic introduction to economics as it perhaps should be practiced, but largely at variance with economics as served up in most introductory academic courses. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers; all levels of students; faculty and practitioners. R. S. Hewett Drake University