Asymmetrical Information

Although this is an amazon.eu URL, I think that it is a prank of some kind. The NYT Book Review quotation is clearly made up, although the sentiment may be accurate.

I have no problem viewing the UK cover via amazon.co.uk. Yup, it's for real. Instapundit posted on this a couple hours ago as well.

Wow.

Although this is an amazon.eu URL, I think that it is a prank of some kind. The NYT Book Review quotation is clearly made up, although the sentiment may be accurate.

My bad - it was Mickey Kaus who posted on it this morning. It sure looks real. I go to amazon.co.uk just like normal (great way to get books from UK authors you can't wait for) and there it is.

Again, wow.

HOAX!

The comments strip out IMG tags, so see the real image at: http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0393058506.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg.

--Joe

Well, I found the NYT review line with a quick google - it's attached to an amazon entry for The Accidental Theorist.

Here.

Here's the UK editor's page; true to the countrie's sensationalistic tendencies - the tabloid's mother country you know. I think this is a delicious cover - honest!

Dunno what that was.

Try the url without formatting:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393318877/002-0326486-9300838?v=glance&vi=reviews

"Peter Passell, New York Times Book Review
Everything Mr. Krugman has to say is smart, important and even fun to read . . . he is one of a handful of very bright, relatively young economists who do everything well."

Peter Passell, New York Times Book Review
Everything Mr. Krugman has to say is smart, important and even fun to read . . . he is one of a handful of very bright, relatively young economists who do everything well.

Found it on the amazon page for The Accidental Theorist -- if this is a hoax it's pretty damned elaborate.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393318877/002-0326486-9300838?v=glance&vi=reviews

Michael Tinkler:
Your URL, when copied and pasted leads one to the Amazon listing for Krugman's "Accidental Theorist", not "The Great Unravelling".
Try again.

You seem to be assuming that Krugman has cover approval, something that the vast majority of authors don't have.

Yes, but the review tagline on the cover of The Great Unravelling is from a review of The Accidental Theorist. It is not at all uncommon for presses to use reviews of previous books on subsequent ones (like the pages of blurbs that appear inside the front covers of popular novels) .

I stopped reading krugman about 2 years ago. Paul Begala is so much more appealing and James Carville is so much more witty.

Yes, because the tagline on the cover of "The Great Unravelling" is from a review of "The Accidental Theorist." Skim down the page and you'll find it.

If I were a Princeton professor of economics, and my book was coming out with that cover, I'd threaten to publicly criticise the cover if they didn't change it. That cover is embarassing -- it looks like something Michael Moore would reject as being too extreme.

When I go to the book's listing with its publisher, I get the image.

Same thing when I go to the book's listing at the British bookselling sites www.amazon.co.uk, www.studentbookworld.com, www.historybookshop.com, bookshop.blackwell.co.uk, and www.whsmith.co.uk.

This is the real UK cover.

Yep, it's for real. However, I have no idea whether Krugman approved it or even knows about it.

Oh boy, I can hardly wait for GT to defend this.

"Yep, it's for real. However, I have no idea whether Krugman approved it or even knows about it."

Then I assume he won't mind denouncing it, if he doesn't want his name associated with it.

Somehow, I expect his reaction to be a glare and a snarling defense of the cover as appropriate. I'm ready to be pleasantly surprised, though--even dishonest partisan hacks can have shining moments.

The Brits don't have much respect for our government (or at least the current admin). If I didn't know it before, I would have learned it the other night watching Love Actually.

I don't think authors have much control of what the cover looks like.

What's the problem? Krugman not politically correct enough for you?

Book cover from UK page

Here's the url from the UK site. Pretty identical looking pictures. I looked it up this morning when I saw it on Andrew Sullivan's site. I thought we were in for a hoax, but it sure looks real.
main UK page for book

Why on earth should he denounce it? It's pretty well in line with how the last three years have gone in this country.

What the fuck does the "politically correct" shibboleth have to do with anything?

"Why on earth should he denounce it? It's pretty well in line with how the last three years have gone in this country."

If he wants to embrace it, that's fine with me too; either way, he would be accepting responsibility for something being published with his name on it, rather than weaseling out by blaming the publisher as some here are advocating.

I don't see anything at all to quibble with over the cover. No reason for Krugman OR the publisher to apologize for anything (although those who point out that the author likely had no control over the cover art are correct). It seems that debating the content of the book might be more instructive than kvetching over whether or not we don't like the pictures on the cover.

An economist of his stature? What the hell stature is that? Any stature he once had is gone by now. He is Michael Moore.

"He is Michael Moore."

Michael Moore notably minus any sense of humor.

It's the cover of the edition sold in Australia also. You can see it here (if this link works):
The Great Unravelling

not in canada...

here we get the sanitized version...

now why didn't he have the balls to use it in the US???

i'm going to email fox!

if it is uk, they do tend to be a bit more comfortable with treating their politicians with greater irreverence than we do here: if you don't believe me, check out steve bell in the guardian. this is pretty standard fare for him:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,929514,00.html
i warn you though: its not pretty.

That looks more like Steve Bell treating OUR politicians with irreverence. His own get a toasting now and then too, but with a somewhat less, uh, "creative interpretation." Less likely to get sued under a highly liberal libel law that way, I presume.

Drawing fully a third of your work in examination of another country's leaders, generally to represent them in the most unflatteringly possible ways, is also an interesting plot twist. If this is that European "international awareness" thing, I fail to see the advantage.

I also note that Bell enjoys drawing bulbous male posteriors, even in contexts that don't actually call for it. Implications of that observation are left as an exercise for the reader.

Hm! His publisher seems to have gone in for a "Truth in Advertising" approach as in "This is a book written by a moonbat for the moonbats! Sane readers should go spend their money on some other author."

On the whole I approve. ^_~

You know, Paul Krugman is an economist first and foremost. So what seems more profitable than to copy Michael Moore?

"I stopped reading krugman about 2 years ago. Paul Begala is so much more appealing and James Carville is so much more witty."

I guess this post was tongue-in-cheek, because if there is a human antonym for "appealing," it's Paul Begala.

Don Imus said it well: "after I talk to Paul, I feel like I need a shower."

"' Paul Begala is so much more appealing and James Carville is so much more witty.'

"I guess this post was tongue-in-cheek because if there is a human antonym for 'appealing,' it's Paul Begala..."

~~~
I'd guess not. It was Begala compared to Krugman.

E.g., When Krugman was slurring Thomas White in the Times as "Evil ... Evil" on the basis of the e-mail he claimed to have, Begala quoted Krugman and slammed White too.

However, when Begala realized that Krugman didn't have what he claimed, he made a very gracious public apology to White on television: "I'm very sorry if I cited something that turns out to be factually false..."

But Krugman never apologized to White. Hey, when was the last time Krugman graciously apologized to anybody??* And there are so many deserving -- even his best friend Prof. DeLong is still saying he owes apologies to Laura Tyson, and that was from what, 12 years ago?

So vis a vis Begala, all things are relative.

And I don't see why anybody'd be upset by the book cover. It's not like it's misleading about the contents what with the intro comparing the right to Jacobins and Nazis and all. The publisher's simply identified PK's market.

* Lawyers had to beat him into the extended apology to Fraga reputedly, so that doesn't count. And as it reads like a lawyer wrote it for him, it wasn't particularly gracious either.

"I find it hard to believe that an economist of Paul Krugman's stature, even one with his admitted hatred of the Bush administration, would approve a cover so over the top."

Agreed. If I were Krugman, I would have insisted on getting Ashcroft doing Lady Liberty in the ass on there too.

'Michael Moore notably minus any sense of humor.'

Michael Moore has a sense of humor? coulda fooled me ..

'Excuse me, Mr. Moore, but I have this awful sinking feeling you're trying to be funny!'

"I guess this post was tongue-in-cheek, because if there is a human antonym for "appealing," it's Paul Begala."

One of the few remaining high points of SNL are the occasional "Hardball" parodies, with their substantial amount of gratuitous Begala abuse.

More here.

Damon - that would be a great addition!

Regardless of other facts or issues involved: "I find it hard to believe that an economist of Paul Krugman's stature, even one with his admitted hatred of the Bush administration, would approve a cover so over the top."

I'm not sure where you got the idea that authors in American trade publishing commonly have cover approval, but it's a false notion. It can happen, but it's a comparatively rare exception. Publishers know that authors aren't professional art directors or knowledgeable about marketing, and that the cover is the single most important marketing tool. They also don't want to go to the considerable expense and trouble of having to redo a cover once it's done and they like it. Cover approval is only granted when the author absolutely forces a publisher to grant it and has the power(rare)to do so.

Control over what a foreign publisher that has bought specific country rights will do is even more unlikely and the logistics become far more impractical. (Did you notice the flap about what the Chinese did to Hilary Clinton's book?)

I'm not saying that Krugman couldn't have cover approval; I'm saying it's a mistake to assume it. People in the comments here suggesting otherwise are simply ignorant of trade publishing practice.

Note that this has nothing whatever to do with one's opinions of Krugman or the imagery. It's simply about how trade publishing works.

"...this is the cover art for Paul Krugman's book outside of the US." This obviously can't be true, as the only countries this could be used as a cover would be the handful of English-speaking cover. I'm surprised you would credulously buy the notion that this cover would possibly be used in France, Russia, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, Brazil, and so on. It makes no sense whatever.

Regardless of other facts or issues involved: "I find it hard to believe that an economist of Paul Krugman's stature, even one with his admitted hatred of the Bush administration, would approve a cover so over the top."

I'm not sure where you got the idea that authors in American trade publishing commonly have cover approval, but it's a false notion. It can happen, but it's a comparatively rare exception. Publishers know that authors aren't professional art directors or knowledgeable about marketing, and that the cover is the single most important marketing tool. They also don't want to go to the considerable expense and trouble of having to redo a cover once it's done and they like it. Cover approval is only granted when the author absolutely forces a publisher to grant it and has the power(rare)to do so.

Control over what a foreign publisher that has bought specific country rights will do is even more unlikely and the logistics become far more impractical. (Did you notice the flap about what the Chinese did to Hilary Clinton's book?)

I'm not saying that Krugman couldn't have cover approval; I'm saying it's a mistake to assume it. People in the comments here suggesting otherwise are simply ignorant of trade publishing practice.

Note that this has nothing whatever to do with one's opinions of Krugman or the imagery. It's simply about how trade publishing works.

"...this is the cover art for Paul Krugman's book outside of the US." This obviously can't be true, as the only countries this could be used as a cover would be the handful of English-speaking cover. I'm surprised you would credulously buy the notion that this cover would possibly be used in France, Russia, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, Brazil, and so on. It makes no sense whatever.

Gary -- Paul Krugman's comments on the matter right now seem to indicate that he had some measure of cover approval, or at least so I interpret his failure to explain that he didn't have cover approval.

"Paul Krugman's comments on the matter right now seem to indicate that he had some measure of cover approval...." Okay. Cite?

Thanks immensely, by the way, for the post on my Little Problem. I wait with bated breath to see if I get more response from libertarian, conservative, liberal, leftist, or uncategorizable, bloggers and readers.

I wonder if it would help if I made it a contest?

:-)

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