Items related to Happiness: Lessons from a New Science

Happiness: Lessons from a New Science - Hardcover

Layard, Richard

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9781594200397: Happiness: Lessons from a New Science

Synopsis

Draws on a range of scientific research in such fields as psychology, sociology, and applied economics that reveals how everyday people are no happier than they were fifty years ago in spite of higher wages, in a study that seeks to define happiness while identifying its causes and the means that are available to everyday individuals to pursue and acquire happiness. 40,000 first printing.

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About the Author

Richard Layard is one of Britain's best-known economists and a leading world expert on unemployment and inequality. He runs Europe's leading economics research center within the London School of Economics. He worked for the British government as an economic adviser from 1997 to 2001, and in 2000 he became a member of the House of Lords. He is the author of a number of academic books.

Reviews

Reviewers agree that Layard, a leading British economist and well-known government advisor, raises fundamentally important questions that we all tend to ignore in our strivings to achieve on a daily basis. The author supplies ample data to show that capitalism’s emphasis on individualism and competition has helped to diminish the feeling of a common good among people of different classes and societies. The critics disagree, however, on Layard’s recommendation of state- and church-oriented intervention to reverse the patterns of behavior that are not, in so many eyes, contributing to happiness. Since "happiness studies" is a new science (see Gregg Easterbrook’s The Progress Paradox *** Mar/Apr 2004), it stands to reason that the early tomes of this philosophy would stir controversy. Just don’t let it dampen your day.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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