Foundations therefore reflects not just our academic experience but our practical experience in talking to policy makers and people in business, sceptical audiences who need to see clearly the thread of the argument and the clarity of the conclusion. Years of talking to them has made us aware that the best ideas in economics can be expressed simply. Anything that takes pages of argument usually turns out to be a special case. We need to study economics because, like gravity or the spherical earth, the key ideas of economics are not obvious until they have been set out. Thereafter, nobody should forget them.
Foundations therefore embodies our conviction that good economics is simple.
Of course that does not mean that everything that is simple is good economics. Using economics to illuminate how our world works should also be the source of pleasure and intellectual excitement, and strange practices are explained and myths debunked. We have tried to make Foundations fun to read - we hope you agree. There is no slowing in the pace of technological change. Breakthoughs in computing, telecommunications, and transport continue to shrink our world and make the future less like the past.