Book excerpt: Where does wealth come from? How is it different from money? Does division of labour mean that the best people are hired to do the job? Does government intervention prevent or create crises? What is the most effective way to protect the environment? The great Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle dismissed economics as "the dismal science", yet it is at the heart of everything we do. Economics without the Boring Bits is a clear, comprehensive and richly anecdotal guide to debt, finance, trade, money, taxation, supply, demand and all the other big issues that worry us all yet relatively few truly understand. Oxford-trained economist Tejvan Pettinger takes readers on an enlightening tour of the powerful, counter-intuitive and frequently startling insights of economic research, showing us that middlemen are good, recycling is bad (sometimes) and why some people get rich and others don't. If you want to understand the wealth of nations without wading through The Wealth of Nations, this is the ideal place to start.