The Global Economy as You’ve Never Seen It: 99 Ingenious Infographics That Put It All Together

by Thomas Ramge, Jan Schwochow, Adrian Garcia-Landa (Contributor)

An ingeniously conceived tour of the global economy and all its key components, deconstructed piece by piece in 99 illuminating, full-color infographics

The economy is a complex, world-spanning, layer-upon-layer-upon-layer behemoth; one could argue that there’s almost nothing in our lives that isn’t in some way connected to the worlds of business and finance. And yet few of us truly understand it—even the world’s foremost economists can’t seem to agree on how it runs.

The Global Economy as You’ve Never Seen It shows how the economy works in 99 brilliantly illustrated infographics that everyone can understand. From labor to business to finance to theory, and from the things you buy and the way you buy them to the way everything is made, infographic specialist Jan Schwochow and author Thomas Ramge bring to life every facet of the economic web that makes the world go. With its endlessly varied, information-rich visuals, this book invites us to see the economy differently—and to finally understand how it all fits together.

Genres: Nonfiction, Economics, Business, Finance

216 pages, Hardcover

Published October 23, 2018

Reviews

[Christa Van · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only 205 pages? I thought I could read this in an evening. But each page is packed with graphs, data, info-graphics. I couldn't read more than a few pages each night because I had to ponder the information contained. Great for econ nerds and probably lots of other nerds too.

[Carly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is captivating and beautiful. I was lucky enough to have it assigned to me in my microeconomics program, which was helpful for me to visualize some of the concepts in and outside of class. However, there are major neoclassical economic biases within these pages, and a odd valorization of the entrepreneur. The author does not highlight the ways in which the white rich are elevated in our economy (access to loans, loans with better rates) compared to people of color who have been systemically ignored or taken advantage of by institutions.

[Hannajanepartlo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful presentation and concept. Unfortunately most of the data is now almost 10 years old and outdated. Many of the statistics presented lack context to truly show a full picture particularly when it comes to finite resources.

[Jesse Richards · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a great idea, but out of the 99 infographics, only 25 or so were well-designed. Out of those, I only found 5 that were excellent and newly insightful. The rest were overly complicated, showing tons of thinly-related data overlapping in strange ways. Yes, they're eventually parsible, but they're not telling a good story. An infographic hasn't succeeded when you find yourself longing for some simple paragraphs of text.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

We took this book out from the library on account of the gorgeous illustrations. It's an interesting book to curl up with over a weekend or over several evenings; it covers quite an eclectic range of material. The title of the book suggests that this is about "the global economy" and indeed, you'll be able to learn about concepts such as the money supply, global supply chains (or more accurately global networks of suppliers coordinating to produce complex goods), the most dominant multinationals, international organisations, even money flows from illegal activity.

But the book covered much much more than that. It's divided into 7 sections - The Individual, The Company, The National (read: US) Economy, The Global Economy, Theory, Environment and Resources and The Future. From The Individual, we learn about workers, managers, the poor and wealthy, the consumer, Maslow's hierarchy. I was quite surprised to see the book touch briefly on leadership frameworks (e.g. Ron Heifetz's metaphor of needing to move between the balcony and the dance floor), leadership styles and how office BS works. The section on The Company touched on the different phases of a team - forming, norming, storming, performing and transforming. Like I said, it's eclectic - not what you would expect in a book about the global economy - but pleasantly so.

You can read The Global Economy on different levels. Read the section on Theory for a quick and dirty summary of Adam Smith, Keynes, Marx, Sen and Friedman. The Future gives a quick summary on major trends such as AI, the blockchain, finch and Industry 4.0. Learn about the Business Model Canvas, what going public entails, the AIDA model for marketing and what greenwashing is all about.

But you could equally just flip through it for arresting visuals illustrating where household spending goes, which are the most successful consumer products (and also the biggest flops - this was where I learned about McDonald's Arch Deluxe and Colgate's frozen pizza), the world's 5 largest advertisers, the world's most prosperous nations (based on different measures such as happiness, the Gini coefficient, relative income poverty, etc), relative purchasing power (based on the Big Mac Index by the Economist).

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty neat book about economics, and how it works. Reading about this like M1 and M2 types of money were more enjoyable in this format. There is a lot to take in here, and if it were a textbook, it would be 4 or 5 stars, easy. My kindle version had some pages that didn't load right, not sure why. The rest was good, but the breadth of coverage seems odd. Going from how the Fed works, to then talking about Google, seemed odd. Still, it was a nice read. Could have probably been deeper or more focused in some areas, but enjoyable nonetheless.

[Tyler Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece of data visualization, this book takes the reader through aspects of the global economy, from the individual through the international, and from the dawn of human civilization through the future, all in an accessible, entertaining, and visually stunning manner. Highly recommend for business/Econ students, or anyone with a passing interest in how the worldwide economy works.

[Dray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book for two reasons. 1 - It is on economics and does a decent job in terms of scope and explanation of a very complicated system and is easy to understand. 2 it uses infographics for the "story" and does a good job there as well. I've never read a book that is all infographics and it took a little getting used to but I recommend it.

[Breanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I skimmed through this book. It has a lot of interesting topics and pretty graphics. I hoped to get threw it in a day but ran out of time. Maybe I will pick it up again. Some of the graphs did not make sense to me, but I'm not a data scientist or economist so maybe I was reading it wrong. All in all I enjoyed it.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the blurb says, the book is a series of detailed, brilliant, and entertaining infographics that cover every conceivable aspect of the subject. If you read this, be sure to read everything, including the running headers. There is an organizational method to it all.

[Chiao-yu Tuan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book. Light reading for some basic econ. Main reason it’s not 5 stars is the number of mistakes on the book, like cities are flagged with the wrong country flag, and footnote labels don’t match the graphs. Someone should proof read this a couple more times before going to print

[Ronda Canary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a pretty fantastic introduction to the economy. The writing is concise, but complete, and the infographics are generally very clever and informative. Really a great primer.

[Ron Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice giant-size book with a collection of magazine-style infographics about the past, present and future of economics.

[Craigtator · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of purty pictures. What does the future hold? Big data! Bitcoin! Blockchain! Elon Musk!

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was designed very well, took a very dry subject and made it interesting to read and learn about.

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A ton of data. You will be over-whelmed at times but, at other times, you will stop and read and look and think.

[Eric Fritz · Rating 2 out of 5]

The authors did a lot of research and graphic design work, but for a book that's supposed to be informative it turns into pro-capitalist propaganda in too many places.

[Cyndi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had some very interesting and educational sections. It also is a reminder that not everything makes a good infographic.

[Steve Willey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super interesting book with infographics on a wide variety of infographics.

[Rolin · Rating 3 out of 5]

some great visualization, some unnecessary.

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun collection of infographics taking a look at the global economy up to 2015. I loved the diversity of graphic types, from graphs to non-graph data viz to explanatory pages drawn like comics or blueprints. Most graphics were interesting and effective, with only a handfuleaving me wondering if there was a better way to show the info. I was a little unsure of what country was represented when only one was spotlighted, though.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's strange to me, as a late member of the 'boomer' generation, how people these days are so much more visual. Manga in the form of University textbooks became a very real thing in Japan of the 1990's and I experienced that first hand here at Uni in. So. Cal. as well. I never imagined/didn't realize how infographics would come to be so important a learning/teaching tool. As a visual person I love infographics. They're a fun way to absorb information rapidly (in my case). This is a wonderful book, a great coffee table choice for a moment when my friends faces aren't in their phones.