Though the tile Superfreakonomics stirs some chords in brain, it’s the full title of the book that communicates the full gravity of the work “SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance!”
Penned by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, the book is as much fun as its predecessor, Freakonomics was.
I have spent countless hours sitting besides my grandmother and listening, how better the times were when she was young and how everything has gone to dogs in modern times. Sitting at my laptop and having information highway available to myself at a click of my mouse, I have always wondered whether it is like what grandmother has said or is it just her nostalgia? My line of thought has been confirmed by the authors that we humans have a natural tendency to crave pessimism.
As we turn pages of the books, the book becomes more and more entertaining in its fresh insight into the events that we have observed and have formulated our theories about. Be it a scientist like Nathan Myhrvold or a statistician deep into the data to find a common thread joining all the terrorists, or teaching monkeys to use paper money, especially to buy a commodity like sex, we are greeted with an outlook that is sure to stir the dust off the deep beliefs.
The book also encourage the readers to take a different stance on topics to that of writer’s like the matter of global warming. The writers convince the reader that it would be disappointing if they would not be involved in a debate on the ideas presented.
Superfreakonomics
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