Freakonomics: Book 1
Welcome to the beta version of Shelfari’s new Book Detail pages!
These pages are editable by the community, so please contribute! Click here to learn more about this feature. We’d love to hear your feedback.
Description
Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime? These may not sound like... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis
Summary
Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime? These may not sound like... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)
Cast of Characters/Important People
- Stetson Kennedy: Add a description of this character.
- Paul Feldman
- J. T. Berry Brazelton
- Sudhir Venkatesh
- Temptress: A fifteen-year-old girl, living up to her name,l whose misdeeds landed her in Albany County Family Court in New York.
Memorable Quotes
-
“Anything worth having is a thing worth cheating for.”
W. C. Fields -
“For every clever person who goes to the trouble of creating an incentive scheme, there is an army of people, clever and otherwise, who will inevitably spend even more time trying to beat it. Cheating may or may not be human nature, but it is certainly a prominent feature in just about every human endeavor.”
-
“And an exclamation point in a real estate ad is bad news for sure, a bid to paper over real shortcomings with false enthusiasm.”
First Sentence
Anyone living in the United States in the early 1990s and paying even a whisper of attention to the nightly news or a daily paper could be forgiven for having been scared out of his skin.
Table of Contents
I.
Introduction: The Hidden Side of Everything
II.
1. What do School teachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?
2. How is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents?
3. Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?
4. Where Have All the Criminals Gone?
5. What Makes a Perfect Parent?
6. Perfect Parenting, Part II; or: Would a Roshanda by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?
III.
Epilogue: Two Paths to Harvard
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
Series
This is book 1 in the Freakonomics series.
Authors & Contributors
- Stephen J. Dubner (Author)
- Steven D. Levitt
Awards
- Quill Award (2005: Business)
Popular Tags
See all 50 tags
If you have any suggestions for how we can improve this page or if there are sections that you would like us to add, please let us know.
