The big economic story of our times is not the Great Recession. It is how China and India began to embrace neoliberal ideas of economics and attributed a sense of dignity and liberty to the bourgeoisie they had denied for so long. The result was an explosion in economic growth and proof that economic change depends less on foreign trade, investment, or material causes, and a whole lot more on ideas and what people believe. Or so says Deirdre N. McCloskey in "Bourgeois Dignity", a fiercely contrarian history that wages a similar argument about economics in the West. Here she turns her attention to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe to reconsider the birth of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism. According to McCloskey, our modern world was not the product of new markets, but rather the result of shifting opinions about them. An utterly fascinating sequel to her critically acclaimed book "The Bourgeois Virtues", "Bourgeois Dignity" is a feast of intellectual riches from one of our most spirited and ambitious historians.

迪爾德麗 N. 麥剋羅斯基（Deirdre N. McCloskey）齣生於1942年，當時叫唐納德 N. 麥剋羅斯基（Donald N. McCloskey），她是美國的經濟學教授。她在伊利諾伊大學芝加哥分校（UIC）的職稱是經濟學、曆史學、英語和傳播學特聘教授。迪爾德麗也兼任哲學和古希臘、古羅馬文學教授，此前五年，她在鹿特丹的伊拉斯謨大學擔任經濟學、哲學、曆史學、英語以及藝術和文化方麵的特聘教授。自2007年10月以來，迪爾德麗已經獲得瞭兩個榮譽博士頭銜。

迪爾德麗在哈佛大學接受瞭經濟學訓練，她寫過十四本書，編輯過七本，發錶瞭360篇文章，涉及經濟理論、經濟史、哲學、修辭學、女權主義、倫理學和法學。迪爾德麗在芝加哥大學從事經濟學教學十二年，現在她稱自己是一個“後現代、自由市場階段、追求定量標準、屬於聖公會、支持女權主義的亞裏士多德學派學者”。