Why Shelf 332?

What is in a name?

A good share of my reading is in the area of economic and financial history.  There are plenty of books published each year.  The challenge is finding recommendations from someone whose opinion I trust to help me select what I shall read and what I shall avoid reading.  There is a limit to my available time and I hate to waste it.  You may find yourself in the same situation; if you trust my opinions, these writings are for you.

One of the pleasures - or curses - of reading history is that we see the same conditions or situations appear in our own lives.  Knowing how things turned out from the decisions we made the last time may give us guidance or a warning.

I welcome your reactions and your own thoughts about the book reviews I post.  In fact, if you read these same books, I would hope you might post your own comments or notes.  Together, we can make it easier for everyone else.

Of course, you may ask, "Why call it Shelf 332?"  The Dewey Decimal classification is a scheme for classifying knowledge.  It divides all knowledge into ten categories.  Each of these is subdivided into ten categories.  Each subcategory is further divided into ten listings.  Thus the 1,000 subcategories of knowledge can be represented as a three digit number between 000 and 999.  Further sub-classifications fall to the right of the decimal, as in 332.465; the 465 carries additional information.  

In this scheme, numbers in the 300s refer to the social sciences.  Within the 300s, numbers in the 330s refer to economics and within the 332s, to financial economics.  There are repeated concepts that can show up in the string of numbers.  For example, 973 deals with the history of the United States.  So the topic of financial economics in US history will fall under 332.973 with the 973 qualifying the main category of financial economics. 

Not everything I review will fall neatly on this library shelf; I tend to also look at 303 (where social commentaries reside), the 120s and 150s (for psychology such as "Fooled by Randomness"), and 519 (where the whole of statistics seems to be crammed.)  I assume, however, that much should be close enough for you to excuse my erroneous shelving.