'In his admirable book The Economists' Hour, [Binyamin Appelbaum shows how] economists were treated as little more than backroom statisticians until the late 1960s [and] argues that their heyday ended on October 13, 2008, when the chief executives of America's largest banks were marched into the US Treasury for a crisis meeting. He is surely correct.' Edward Luce, Financial Times

'Fascinating . . . totally, totally fascinating.' Kai Ryssdal, 'Marketplace', US National Public Radio

'A kind of ur-text, revealing the destructive role of centering economists in shaping public policy. It's not that we don't need economists and economic theory, but The Economists' Hour patiently reveals the many times and multiple ways they've had an outsized influence at key times and have steered us wrong. It's a fascinating analysis.' Chicago Tribune

'The Economists' Hour is a work of journalism rather than polemic . . . a well-reported and researched history of the ways in which plucky economists helped rewrite policy in America and Europe and across emerging markets' The Economist

'Lively and entertaining . . . The Economists' Hour is a reminder of the power of ideas to shape the course of history' Liaquat Ahamed, New Yorker

'A marvel of popular historical writing, propelled by anecdotes and just the right amount of explanation but also impressively well grounded in the latest academic research by historians, sociologists and others' New York Times

Binyamin Appelbaum writes about economics and business for the editorial page of the New York Times. From 2010 to 2019, he was a Washington correspondent for the Times, covering economic policy in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis. He previously worked for the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the Charlotte Observer, where his reporting on subprime lending won a George Polk Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He lives with his wife and children in Washington, DC.