Customer Rating: 
Summary: the new heavy hitter
Comment: The three most popular books for teaching freshman-level econ in college (and AP Econ in high schools) are, in order, McConnell and Brue, Mankiw, and this one.
It's being talked about as the next big text in the field.
If you read Krugman's column, he leans to the left, sometimes far to the left. But he's not like that in this book, which is firmly centrist.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Accessible introduction to economics...very mainstream, problem sets are lacking
Comment: This is a very low-level introductory textbook on economics. It assumes no prior background and is written to be accessible to a general audience. Most college students should have no trouble reading and understanding this book. The coverage of topics is pretty broad, and the book covers both macro- and micro-economics. The book, however, is extremely mainstream, to the point of being a bit lacking in coverage of topics. In addition, there is a disconnect between the book's prose (which is strictly verbal and has little math) and the problem sets, which are easy, but have a large quantitative component.
The style of writing is clear. The typesetting and layout are also very clear, with key terms highlighted and definitions listed in the margins. There are also about the right number of graphs and little inset paragraphs to keep things interesting. I found most of the graphs to be pretty informative. Although the book does not get into much mathematics, it does gently introduce some as the book goes on.
I have two complaints about this book. The biggest one is that it is written from a perspective that seems a bit biased, and omits a lot. The authors do not seem to adequately explore things that are wrong with our society, including poverty in countries like the U.S., and environmental problems. Occasionally, the authors make statements that are extremely objectionable. For example, when discussing money in chapter 30, the authors make the assertion that money's role as a store of value and medium of exchange are necessarily linked, but they do not discuss the ways in which these two roles can be contradictory in the long-run. The book also does not discuss alternative or complementary currency systems, and I also think it does not spend enough time talking about exchange rates of currencies. Overall, this book does not promote outside-the-box thinking. It paints a naive, rosy picture of the world, not acknowledging the problems in the world that cannot be addressed within the framework of ideas presented in the book.
My other complaint is about the problem sets. This book is almost exclusively qualitative in the prose and the discussion throughout the book. Very little mathematics of any kind is presented in the text of the book. However, many of the problem sets are basically math problems. The result is that a student with a strong math background will find the problem sets ridiculously easy, and a student with a weak math background may find them more of a struggle--independently of how well each student understands the material. I think that the solution to this problem would be to either keep the problem sets strictly conceptual and qualitative (like the prose in the book), or to include more mathematics in the text of the book. In current setup, there is an incongruity between the book and the problem sets.
Overall? Most introductory economics books are pretty bad, so in the global scheme of things, this might not be a bad choice of a textbook for a course, especially a course that does not require any prior background in math or economics. However, I do not think this book is ideal. I do not know of a better one, however...so I would be very grateful if someone could recommend a book that addresses the shortcomings I mentioned here...please post a comment on this review!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Be careful what you buy
Comment: I have this book ("Economics") and have only dipped into it so far - but Amazon doesn't allow me to bypass the star rating so I'll give it 5, just to be positive.
My warning though is that, when I look at the book in Amazon, I am encouraged to buy "Macroeconomics" by the same authors.
The problem is, as far as I can tell from the chapter summaries and sample chapters on the publisher's website [...], "Macroecomics" has the same content as "Economics", except that "Economics" also includes microeconomics (which is another book in itself). (Incidentally, that website has lots of good material on the books, including sample chapters.)
In other words, the contents of "Economics" is very roughly:
1) Introduction to economics, supply & demand and other subjects common to both micro and macroeconomics;
2) Microeconomics;
3) Macroeconomics.
The separate book "Macroeconomics" is parts 1) & 3), and the separate book "Microeconomics" is parts 1) & 2).
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