By Justin Fox (HarperBusiness)
Don't take our word for it. "Fox's book is not an idle exercise in intellectual history, which makes it a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the mess we're in," wrote economist Paul Krugman in the New York Times. What he means is that Fox, TIME's "Curious Capitalist" columnist, has taken the dominant investment theory of our time — that markets accurately reflect all available information about the price of a security — and elegantly torn it to shreds. He's done this by bringing to life the collection of eccentric economists behind the theory while providing a compelling analysis of the rise and ultimate failure of the efficient-market hypothesis. Neat trick.