PPE Resources

Economics:

• Harford - The Undercover Economist
• Dubner and Levitt - Freakonomics
• Thaler & Sunstein - Nudge
• Heilbroner - The Worldly Philosophers
• Galbraith - The Great Crash 1929
• Chang - Edible Economics

Philosophy:

• Singer - Practical Ethics
• Blackburn - Think
• Williamson - Doing Philosophy

Politics:

• Wolff, An Introduction to Political Philosophy (3rd ed, 2015)
• Acemoglu & Robinson- Why Nations Fail [introduction only]
• Autobiographies of world leaders

Crossover:

• ‘Very short introduction’ book series- find a couple which take your fancy!
• Tegmark- Life 3.0 (about AI, a very important topic at the moment)

• How Westminster Works…and Why It Doesn’t – Ian Dunt
• Too Big To Fail – Andrew Sorkin
• Doughnut Economics – Kate Raworth
• Value(s): Building  a Better Work – Mark Carney (he used to run Bank of England)
• Why We Get the Wrong Politicians – Isabel Hardman

• Talking Politics: History of Ideas
• 50 Things that Made the Modern Economy
• OxPods (PPE section)
  • A new podcast produced by current oxford students, interviewing their tutors on a range of topics
• Political Currency (Ed Balls & George Osborne)
  • Overlap between politics/ economics is well presented due to the fact both were key to their parties’ economic offerings during their career.
• Philosophy Bites
• The Daily from the NY Times
• Critical Reasoning for Beginners
  • Would be particularly helpful for year 12 students thinking ahead to the TSA (entrance exam), which assesses critical thinking skills
• Economics Explained

Podcasts which may be biased but are worth listening to in a critical way:

• The Rest is Politics with Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart
• Pod Save the UK / Pod Save America 

The Economist. No need to read cover-to-cover, pick some sections that interest you and read them critically. In addition, you can use The Economist for:

• Podcasts on Spotify
• Read the articles in the Schools Brief section for quick introductions to the major theories in economics. Make sure to click through all the pages!
• Email briefings (daily and weekly)

Financial Times - Sign up for the News Briefing and read the weekend editions for long-form analysis.

• Royal Economics Society Young Economist of the Year
• John Locke Institute
• Institute for Economic Affairs
• St Hugh’s Oxford Kavita Singh PPE Essay Competition
• Trinity College Cambridge essay prizes in philosophy, politics, history (this one has a number of questions so you can choose one which interests you).

• Gaarder - Sophie’s world.
  • Introduction to the history of philosophy, presented in a fun, approachable way
• Camus - The Plague
  • Interesting parallels to the Covid-19 Pandemic
• Orwell - 1984
• Huxley - Brave New World

• The Big Short- on the 2008 financial crisis
• Then & Now Channel
• Kahnemann- Thinking, Fast and Slow video