Genre: Nonfiction
Length: 293 pages
Audiobook Length: 10 hours and 35 minutes
First Published: 2008
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Rachael’s Review
Every day we make a multitude of decisions that will affect our wealth and well-being, yet we constantly make terrible choices. Economists Thaler and Sunstein discuss how individuals, corporations, and governments can design systems that will nudge people toward better decisions without forcing them.
Although I loved the overarching concept of Nudge, the book was terribly long and extremely boring. I was so bored that I eventually gave up at around 10 hours into the 12-hour audiobook. Unfortunately, Thaler and Sunstein get stuck in the details, droning on and on about the minute details of Medicaid Plan D. While I will never recommend this book to anyone, if you do feel a need to try this overrated bestseller for yourself, be sure to get a physical copy so you can skim sections.
Publisher’s Description
Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. Nobel laureate Richard Thaler and legal scholar and bestselling author Cass Sunstein explain in this important exploration of choice architecture that, being human, we all are susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes make us poorer and less healthy; we often make bad decisions involving education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, the family, and even the planet itself.
In Nudge, Thaler and Sunstein invite us to enter an alternative world, one that takes our humanness as a given. They show that by knowing how people think, we can design choice environments that make it easier for people to choose what is best for themselves, their families, and their society. Using colorful examples from the most important aspects of life, Thaler and Sunstein demonstrate how thoughtful “choice architecture” can be established to nudge us in beneficial directions without restricting freedom of choice. Nudge offers a unique new take—from neither the left nor the right—on many hot-button issues, for individuals and governments alike. This is one of the most engaging and provocative books to come along in many years.
About Richard H. Thaler
Richard H. Thaler was the winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics. He is also the author whose works include Nudge (with Cass R. Sunstein) and Misbehaving.
About Cass R. Sunstein
Cass R. Sunstein is an American legal scholar, author, and professor. His works include The World According to Stars Wars, Nudge (with Richard H. Thaler), Law and Leviathan, and Noise (with Daniel Kahneman and Olivier Sibony). He currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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