Why read The Economics of Attention?

Book cover of The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information

Book description

If economics is about the allocation of resources, then what is the most precious resource in our new information economy? Certainly not information, for we are drowning in it. No, what we are short of is the attention to make sense of that information. With all the verve and erudition…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Economics of Attention as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Erwin Dekker

Author

This might well be the least-read book on my list, but I hope that will change soon. Lanham is a Professor of Rhetoric who argues that Andy Warhol was the best economist of attention of the twentieth century, and an exemplar for the economy of the twenty-first, in which value is created through knowledge and attention. Lanham’s inspired distinction between stuff and fluff convincingly demonstrates that the modern economy is more about the experience, style, and packaging of the stuff, rather than the other way around. And that is a good thing. In one of the many digressions in the…

From Erwin's list on cultural knowledge to understand the economy.