Economics rules our lives, but we don’t fully understand how. People can’t easily grasp the big ideas of economics because they’re put off by the graphs, equations, and specialized terminology. This book explains economics through a powerful and underused teaching tool – the metaphor.

ECONOMICS WITHOUT NUMBERS:
A Guide for the Perplexed
by Peter Coy
W.W. Norton, Winter 2027
(via Levine Greenberg Rostan)

Economics and metaphors go together like pasta and clam sauce. The free market is an invisible hand. A rising tide lifts all boats (supposedly). There’s pushing on a string, which describes the difficulty of fighting deflation by lowering interest rates. Trickle down, the benighted notion that the best way to help the poor is to help the rich first. Real estate bubbles, stock market liquidity, price inflation, the random walk of stock prices.

If you understand the metaphors of economics, you’ll be able to make more sense of the latest report on the CPI or the GDP, and you’ll carry your weight in conversations about inflation or the national debt. “Metaphors are markers that orient the discovering wanderer,” two economists once wrote.

Each metaphor is illustrated. Skipping around is highly encouraged. There’s also a detailed index for people who want to look up a puzzling term. (What’s all this about the “velocity” of money?) For casual readers there’s a quick overview in large type. People who want to read more deeply can continue to the main text.

Peter Coy is a writer for the Opinion section of The New York Times, where he has a newsletter on econonmics and adjacent topics. He writes about big macro topics of economic growth, unemployment, and inflation, and also delves into business, markets, trade, government policy, and personal finance.