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Can someone please answer that question for me? Krugman Truth Squad member Gene Epstein, author of Econospinning, sent me a note tonight about Brad DeLong's review of his book. Perhaps Epstein sent it to me because he knows that DeLong suppresses any critical views of himself on his blog.

When Brad DeLong makes a negative judgment of a book, he is quite capable of doing it fairly and honestly. As a case in point, read his sympathetic but highly critical judgment of New York Times reporter Louis Uchitelle's recent book on layoffs ("Americans Idle," New York Times Book Review, Apr 2, 2006, p. 20.).

But in his own sweeping dismissal of my book ("Tyler Cowen," he writes, "did a bad thing in recommending Econospinning"), he falls far short of his own standard. Just for starters, I needn't tell him that a reviewer of a book should always make due acknowledgment when he himself is mentioned critically in that book. Better still, he might explain why the criticisms made of his views—on which he is surely a uniquely qualified expert--are either correct or incorrect. Could DeLong really not have noticed that his own name is listed in the index of my book, with more than one page reference? His over-heated language alone ("Idiot. Fool") makes me doubt his claim that he opened "at random" to page 143; I get the impression he felt provoked. But if he did not notice, then I can only tell him he ought to read the series of chapters that include critical mention of him.

They are important chapters, principally on the way New York Times columnist Paul Krugman—and from a very different perspective, the Wall Street Journal editorial board—grossly misrepresented the labor data.

Instead, DeLong condemns my book as "bad" by dealing "at random" with just a single topic covered in three of its pages that is only loosely related to the central theme of the book. All the important topics to which Tyler Cowen alludes, are ignored. In fact, if DeLong only read my discussion more carefully, he would see that I did not commit the naïve error he attributes to me--which would indeed be an odd slip for a veteran of a market-oriented weekly like Barron's. For a full response to his criticism, I refer interested readers to my own blog—econospinning.com—dedicated to keeping a log on reactions to my book it should be up and running by this Friday, August 25th.

Since DeLong has proved himself quite capable of generating light rather than heat when even strong disagreements arise, I hope he adheres to that standard in any future exchanges between us.

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