????在1998年出版的《美麗心靈》（A Beautiful Mind）中，娜莎憑著小說家對敘述和細節(jié)的獨到視角，講述了一位孤獨的天才——諾貝爾經(jīng)濟學獎獲得者、數(shù)學家約翰?納什的故事。娜莎因此書一舉成名：評論界一片贊譽，小說登上暢銷書排行榜，此后又改編成轟動一時的電影巨制，羅素?克洛主演，郎?霍華德執(zhí)導。

????在她的第二部著作《宏圖大志：經(jīng)濟天才的故事》中，娜莎從微觀視角轉(zhuǎn)向了宏觀領域。不過，此書并非傳統(tǒng)的經(jīng)濟思想史或一群大人物的俗套傳記。實際上，它講述的是前沿激進、改變?nèi)虻闹卮笏枷氲陌l(fā)展歷程——“人類能夠駕馭經(jīng)濟需求——掌控物質(zhì)環(huán)境而不是受其支配?！?/p>

????In A Beautiful Mind (1998) Sylvia Nasar told, with a novelist's eye for narrative and detail, the tragic tale of a solitary genius, Nobel-prize winning mathematician John Nash. Her reward: critical acclaim and a bestseller that later became a hit movie, starring Russell Crowe and directed by Ron Howard.

????With her second book Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius, Nasar shifts from micro to macro. However, this is not a traditional history of economic thought or a conventional string of bios of great men. Rather it is the story of the evolution of a radical, planet-reshaping idea -- "the idea that humanity could turn tables on economic necessity -- mastering rather than being enslaved by material circumstances."

????書中的歷史畫卷史詩般壯闊：維多利亞女王時期的倫敦，戰(zhàn)火肆虐的歐洲，宗主國時期的華盛頓。細節(jié)非常鮮活，甚至令人震驚。比如卡爾?馬克思的口頭禪：“我要殲滅你”；再比如因“創(chuàng)造性毀滅”一語而聲名遠播的約瑟夫?熊彼得，此君在擔任財政部長期間曾坐著馬拉馬車、載著應召女郎，巡游維也納，“左擁右抱”；又比如保守派巨匠米爾頓?弗里德曼，當年還只是財政部一名年輕的學究，卻為羅斯福政府發(fā)明了終極“國家收入征收機器”——代扣所得稅。（當時誰能想得到？）與此同時，該書充分展現(xiàn)了一些拗口卻又關鍵的概念的豐富性和復雜性，比如“貨幣幻覺”（通脹和通縮如何扭曲決策）或生產(chǎn)力作為工薪收入和生活水平主要推動者的作用方式。如果經(jīng)濟學基本原理（Econ 101）也能這么引人入勝該多好??！

????盡管在講訴這些傳奇時難免有所離題，娜莎從未偏離她的主題：現(xiàn)代經(jīng)濟學在幫助解決約翰?梅納德?凱恩斯稱為“人類政治問題”上所發(fā)揮的強大作用——即如何將“經(jīng)濟效率，社會正義和個人自由”結(jié)合起來。如果好萊塢再次發(fā)出片約，無疑需要大衛(wèi)?里恩（英國大師級導演，擅長拍攝場面宏大的歷史紀實片——譯注）出馬，調(diào)集數(shù)千人的強大演員陣容，才能巨細靡遺地打造出一部振奮人心的宏大史詩。

????譯者：清遠

????The canvas is epic: Victorian London, war-shattered Europe, imperial Washington. The details are fresh, at times startling: Karl Marx deploying his favorite conversation starter, "I am going to annihilate you"; Joseph Schumpeter, he of "creative destruction" fame, riding around Vienna as finance minister in a horse-drawn carriage "with a call girl or two on his arm"; conservative icon Milton Friedman as a young Treasury wonk-on-the-make inventing for FDR that ultimate postwar "revenue-raising machine" -- the withholding tax. (Who knew?) At the same time, gnarly but critical concepts, such as the "money illusion" (how inflation and deflation distort decision-making) or the way productivity serves as the primary driver of wages and living standards, shine through in all their richness and complexity. If only Econ 101 had been this interesting!

????Despite some inevitable wandering as her saga rushes on, Nasar never loses sight of her central theme: the powerful role modern economics has played in helping to solve what John Maynard Keynes called "the political problem of mankind" -- how to combine "economic efficiency, social justice and individual liberty." If Hollywood comes knocking this time round, it will take a David Lean, orchestrating a cast of thousands, to capture the epic -- and ultimately deeply uplifting -- sweep of the action.