*Bourgeois Dignity*

The author is Deirdre McCloskey and the subtitle is Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World.  It is on the cultural and intellectual foundations of the Industrial Revolution and I am convinced by the major thesis.  Here is one version of it:

My libertarian friends want liberty alone to suffice, but it seems to me that it has not.  Changing laws is not enough (though it is a good start — and rotten laws can surely stop growth cold.)  True, from 1600 on the new dignity and the new liberty normally reinforced each other, and such a reinforcement is one possible source of the economist's "non-linearities."  Dignity and liberty are admittedly hard to disentangle.  But dignity is a sociological factor, liberty an economic one.

Here is a very good interview with McCloskey about the new book.