The Poet’s Guide to Economics
By John Ramsden
Published by Pallas Athene Books
Shelley called poets, ‘the unacknowledged legislators of the world’. John Ramsden’s The Poets Guide to Economics describes their now largely forgotten contribution to economics.
Concise and witty, the book takes eleven poets – a chapter each – and describes their economic ideas putting them in context. Extracts from the originals allow these great writers to speak for themselves. The tone is by turns eloquent, outraged, elegiac and amused, as we explore the surprisingly fruitful encounter of two very different worlds.
The book starts with Daniel Defoe in the 1690s and closes with Ezra Pound who died in 1972. As expected, the poets’ take on economics is often visionary and idealistic, but their theories are mostly grounded on real insight, sometimes strikingly ahead of their time as they predict evils all too familiar to the 21st Century.
The challenge
A delightful book aimed at readers with some knowledge of economics and literature/ poetry. In the jargon used by today’s ‘holier than thou’ brigade, it was therefore aimed at the elite which by definition isn’t numerous. This might have caused several media to turn their heads the other way as they aim to reach as broad a readership as possible.
The solution
Work closely with the author to devise some creative media pitches relating to the various poets. Stress the aspects of the poets’ analysis especially relevant to current affairs in our own society.
The result
To give just two examples of how the various pitches came to fruition, Paschal Donohe, a former Minister for Finance in Ireland, reviewed the book for The Irish Times discussing Daniel Defoe’s legacy. The Times newspaper run a column about the importance of the humanities in the economics/ financial arena.
Influential conservative magazine, Salisbury Review, featured the book and the author was interviewed on Politico’s podcast, ‘EU Confidential’. Another leading podcast, The Rest is Politics (hosts are former labour communication adviser, Alastair Campbell, and former conservative MP, Rory Stewart) gave a mention to the book.
Both the literary media/ organisations and the economics media covered the book including, the Times Literary Supplement and The Poetry Society, and on the financial side, The Investor’s Chronicle (FT Group). The History of Literature (USA podcast) interviewed the author who was also interviewed on radio by Free Thinking (BBC R3) and Times Radio.