In terms of economic history, the book I'd recommend starting with is Deaton's The Great Escape: Health, Wealth and the Origins of Inequality. It's a nice introduction to how economic development has played out over the course of human history. Guns, Germs and Steel, while not explicitly a book about economics, is a must. Acemoglu's Why Nations Fail is also worth reading. If you want to know more about U.S. economic history--specifically regarding business cycles--then check out Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz's A Monetary History of the United States. I also have some papers on specific periods of U.S. history, if you're interested just let me know and I'll post a bunch.EDIT: Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money is a very good look at the history of the financial system, and one of its main selling points is that Ferguson managed to win a $98,000 bet with a hedge fund manager by predicting in early 2007 that there would be a recession within five years because of the research he did for the book. His other book, Civilization, is also one I like but it's less well-accepted academically. In terms of micro you're probably best off just picking up a textbook and working your way through. Mankiw's is the go-to. I have a lot of papers on the microeconomic role of government--things like pensions, healthca
I'd love to read some of the papers you have on US economic history.
Do you know of some good guides that can introduce a laymen to the language of economics?
...are there any books on economics that aren't boring as fuck?