John McMillan (1951–2007)

When I picked up this book, I thought it was going to be a more social science-oriented view of markets. The title calls itself a 'Natural History of Markets'. Instead, the book is very much a financial look at how and why markets function, when they appear, and how the private vs state balance can often determine success of markets. Many of the anecdotes are interesting, and overall, using economic theory, the author maintains a balanced view of free market and state regulation.

However, the book suffers needlessly from a disjointed presentation, repetitive points (some points are repeated numerous times in just a few paragraphs), and, at times, missing opportunities to offer greater insight into specific examples. Much of the book read like a set of articles loosely related to one another. The last third of the book is really quite dry and disinterested in conveying to the reader, at least it was so to me.

A decent financial book with some interesting examples of market behaviors, but not what I expected from the title, and not covering a lot of new ground for anyone with a reasonable knowledge of markets. Three stars.… (meer)