An original, widely-applicable concept from one of the world's foremost economists. Obliquity will be The Tipping Point for the new decade
John Kay is a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and a fellow of St John's College, Oxford. As research director and director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies he established it as one of Britain's most respected think tanks. Since then he has been a professor at the London Business School and the University of Oxford, where he was the first director of the Said Business School. He is a regular columnist for the Financial Times and the author of numerous books, including The Truth About Markets (9781848296723) and The Long and the Short of It (9780954809324).
Read this book for pleasure, and indirectly - obliquely - you will
gain invaluable insights into how successful decisions are
made.
*Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England*
John Kay has long been our wittiest and most perceptive interpreter
of economic theory. And now that circumstances have given the
theory a bit of a kicking, he has become the most challengingly
lateral: here is an ingenious riff about unintended consequences.
Kay argues that hunger for profit is rarely satisfying. Instead,
messianic commitment to products and consumers makes businesses
enduringly successful. But Obliquity is not so much humble
recantation as brilliant re-statement: this on-the-money re-design
of economics proves the efficiency of markets.
*Stephen Bayley, architecture and design critic for The
Observer*
Obliquity is a very timely and clever book because it is written by
one who sees clearly that, in place of the crashing intellectual
and moral certainties that appeared to underpin our understandings
of the modern world, we need a heavy dose of human understanding
and indeed humility.
*Anthony Seldon*
From Vietnam to Iraq, Sony to ICI, Chess to mountaineering, John
Kay tells a fast-paced detective story as he searches for the
surprising secret to success in politics, business and life. Kay is
persuasive, rigorous, creative and wise. Brilliant.
*Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist and The Logic of
Life*
John Kay is an admirable debunker of myths and false beliefs -- he
can see substantial things others don't. Read this book.
*Nassim N Taleb, author of The Black Swan*
John Kay builds on a great philosophical tradition - stretching
back through Charles Darwin and Adam Smith - that understands how
remarkable things can be achieved without anybody understanding how
or even intending them. He has taken this idea and applied it with
style to modern conundrums from the physics behind Beckham's goals
to the mathematics behind Buffett's riches. A great book.
*Matt Ridley, author Genome and Nature Via Nurture*
An elegant new book...Kay applies his insight to art, politics,
sport and family life
*Observer*
Obliquity is a characteristic John Kay production. It is a pleasure
to read
*Financial Times*
Fascinating
*Richard Lambert, Director-General of the CBI*
Kay is one of our most dependably perceptive and interesting
economic commentators and he wields a deft pen, so the pages of
Obliquity fly by.
*Management Today*
How rare is it for an academic economist to write with such
clarity, intelligence and courage. And, in these troubled,
confusing times, how desperately we need other dismal scientists to
follow John Kay's shining example.
*Spectator Business*
One of our cleverest thinkers.
*Independent*
This is a fascinating book that challenges all sorts of
assumptions.
*British Airways Business Life*
It is possibly a lukewarm tribute to say that John Kay is one of
the most engaging and accessible writers on economics in Britain
today.
*Morning Star*
Kay is both a first-class economist and an excellent writer
*Financial Times*
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