Economist – The Bell Bookshop

The Economist Quiz Book

Emma — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Calling all quizzers and problem solvers drawn to the smart, the quirky and the counter-intuitive, 'The Economist Quiz Book' is here for you. Across 60 themed quizzes - on topics from TV, film and music to politics, science, natural history and more - three quiz rounds challenge the quizzer to find hidden connections, get their facts straight and sort the genuine from the fake. Tackle in teams or go the distance alone. But be prepared to pit your mental agility and general knowledge against some of the world's top journalists - and see the world through the eyes of The Economist.

Figuring Out the Past

Emma — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The numbers that tell the story of humanity’Vital … If you’re thinking about setting up a giant land empire in Asia, you cannot do so without this book … If only the last Song emperor had had this book by his side, he might have avoided his appalling fate’ Dan SnowWhat was history’s biggest empire? Or the tallest building of the ancient world? What was the average life expectancy in medieval Byzantium? The average wage in Old Kingdom Egypt? Where did scientific writing first emerge? What was the bloodiest ritual human sacrifice ever?We are used to thinking about history in terms of stories. Yet we understand our own world through data: vast arrays of statistics that reveal the workings of our societies. So, join the radical historians Peter Turchin and Dan Hoyer for a dive into the numbers that reveal the true shape of the past. Drawing on their own Seshat project, a staggeringly ambitious attempt to log each piece of demographic and econometric information that can be reliably estimated for every society that has ever existed, Figuring Out The Past does more than tell the story of the past: it shows you the large-scale patterns.

Oddly Informative

Emma — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The more we ponder, the odder the world can seem. How do footballers get their shirt numbers? Why does having daughters make couples more likely to divorce? How do you move a horse from one country to another? What counts as a journey into space? The keen minds at The Economist contemplate all these questions and more in their quest for the globe’s most extraordinary quandaries and conundrums, with bizarre facts and headscratchers that show the world is even stranger than we might have thought. From plant-based milk and supermoons to the next Dalai Lama and what really happened at the storming of the Bastille, this collection of the oddest and most mindboggling explanations will amaze and delight in equal measure.

Truly Peculiar

Emma — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Our extraordinary world makes more (and sometimes less) sense when you wonder:What’s driving the international turkey-meat boom?How does a cannonball determine a maritime boundary?Where can you wed your mobile phone?Why do septuagenarians have a better chance of summiting Mount Everest than ever?The ever-keen minds of The Economist Explains solve all these riddles and more in their latest encyclopaedic excursion around the globe. Baffle your friends and colleagues with unconventional headscratchers that shed surprising light on science, culture, world affairs and more. From the underground trade in hair to Hollywood’s role in the creation of the snow globe, Truly Peculiar takes a walk on the weird side.

Pocket World in Figures 2022

Emma — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The 2022 edition of this annual bestseller has been completely revised and updated, with new features including the origins and destinations of migrants, the prevalence of paramilitary forces, levels of slum populations and a range of indicators tracking the effects of covid-19, among many others.It provides rankings on more than 200 topics covering 188 countries, together with detailed statistical profiles of 64 of the world’s major economies, plus the euro area and the world itself, and challenges readers to test their knowledge with a quiz.If you want to know » which country imports the most arms » the countries with the highest lifeexpectancy » where most mammal species are underthreat » which country normally hosts most tourists » where to get the highest broadband speed » who has the highest percentage of covid-19vaccinationsthis edition of Pocket World in Figures has the answers.

The Classical School

Emma — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

‘Williams has chosen an engaging cast of characters; his collection is full of well-lived lives and grisly endings … Consume it as a whole or dip in and out. Either way, he leaves you a lot wiser.’ – Philip Aldrick, TimesOpinions vary about who really counts as a classical economist: Marx thought it was everyone up to Ricardo. Keynes thought it was everyone up to Keynes. But there’s a general agreement about who belongs to the heroic early phase of the discipline. Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Malthus, Mill, Marx: scarcely a day goes by without their names being publicly invoked to celebrate or criticise the state of the world or the actions of governments.Few of us, though, have read their works. Fewer still realise that the economies that many of them were analysing were quite unlike our modern one, or the extent to which they were indebted to one another. So join the Economist’s Callum Williams to join the dots. See how the modern edifice of economics was built, brick by brick, from their ideas and quarrels. And find out which parts stand the test of time.

Guide to investment strategy

Emma — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The classic guide for the individual investor, The Economist Guide to Investment Strategy sets out the basic – and the not-so-basic – principles for putting your wealth to work. It looks at risk, pointing out the hazards for those who wish to explore a variety of investment approaches. It also teaches the importance of sophisticated self-knowledge in finance, distilling insights from behavioural analysis as well as the principles of traditional finance. It highlights how habitual patterns of decision-making can lead any of us into costly mistakes, and it stresses how markets are most dangerous when they appear to be most rewarding. This fourth edition includes new material on private investment and non-standard asset classes – art, wine, collectibles and the like – helping readers to navigate those areas in which prudence meets passion.