Time Will Run Back by Henry Hazlitt

Time Will Run Back Reviews

• 
  Patrick Peterson

  I read this over 30 years ago, (approx. date) and thought it was pretty interesting.
  From what I can remember, it is a fictional story about the son of the Soviet Union's leader who takes over after his father dies.
  
  He has funny ideas about how society could be better managed by devolving power from the central government to private enterprise. Amazing.
  
  Wish I could remember more. Perhaps some day I will have time to read it again.
  
  The author, Henry Hazlitt, was an economic journalist (with The New York Times and then Newsweek) and world famous for his best selling book "Economics in One Lesson." Part of the reason why the book did so well is the quality of his writing. This work was his only fiction book.
• 
  Henry

  As a story this book fails because it is too much this telling what happened instead of showing. As a book on ecconomics it fails because it is too optimistic about how people really will behave - the thesis is probably correct, but it tried to pretend that something that needs hundreds of years will happen in just a few.
  
  If you want to learn about ecconomics from an book that you can read for pleasure it works, but it isn't enjoyable enough to be a pleasure book, and isn't correct enough to be a text book.
• 
  Eric

  One of the best books I've read.
• 
  Yogy TheBear

  Henry Hazlitt is one of my favorite economic authors and I totaly agree and consider his positions right.
  But I am totaly dissapointed by what he done here with this book !! I recomend to all that are not acustomed to this author or the austrian theory of economics to pick another of his books because they are great !!
  The concept he tried to do is indead a very interesting one full of potential; the first chapters were very good and the similarities with 1984 were facinating. But Hazlitt wanted to combine here the austrian theory of economics into a suitable plot. He totaly failed the plot part !!
  Peter is a character with global power whose actions affect the entire world, in order to create a plot for such a character you need much more world bilding and more character development and more characters and relations !! What Hazlitt did not realize is that his project should have been a 1000 page book to succede, like Ayn Rand's book !!
  For me who know all the economical theory discussed in this book, I was more interested about the plot !! What Hazlitt produced was a book with dialogue, like Plato's dialogue on economical issues in wich the plot just offers a context for the dialogue...
• 
  Shane

  I have been reading a number of odd books lately, and this fits right in. I believe that Hazlitt was a brilliant and gifted economist, not so much as a writer of fiction. This has an interesting premise; in a world where communism wins the battle of world domination, a new leader is promoted who had a completely sheltered adolescence. He can not stand the hypocrisy of socialism and strives for a more free and open society. The execution falls a bit flat and it is easy to see why Orwell's "1984" became more of a classic. The worlds start out very similar; and this book actually offers solutions through a free-market approach but Orwell has a better refined execution and even a grudgingly reluctant acceptance of socialism (to make it palatable to English teachers).
  
  The ebook I purchased from LvMI through Amazon had many typographical errors.
• 
  Bob Griffith

  I think this is a great book. If one was to evaluate it as a typical work of fiction, it, no doubt, would not come out too well. It’s not going to dazzle you with its story telling or captivate you. The story is contrived and unrealistic. It’s best to think of it as a fable. A fable, with such things as talking animals, isn’t realistic. The fable exists to demonstrate a point. Not to just tell you, but to show you. I have read many nonfiction books by Hazlitt, Mises, Thomas Sowell and others. I loved these books. They do an excellent job of identifying and explaining the flaws of Socialism and how Capitalism inherently solves these problems without judgmental interference from authorities. What’s different about “Time will Run Back” is that it doesn’t just tell you, it shows you. It shows why Socialism results in an extraordinary and necessary loss of freedom; how it necessitates brutal force; how totalitarianism is an inevitable consequence; and how it lacks incentives for productivity, efficiency and innovation. This is a message that a lot of people today don’t seem to get.
• 
  Dio Mavroyannis

  This is a sort of dialogue exposition of Austrian economics. It isn't written in the most elegant manner and the story and characters are a bit two dimensional. Nevertheless, this is an important book because it is the first attempt I know of to transform economic theory into a Plato's republic style narrative.
• 
  Stephanie

  I'm being generous and giving this two stars for the truths in the book and the effort the author went through explaining them. But as a novel, this would get one star. It was so bad. I've asked my husband, the next time he wants me to learn about economics, just get me a textbook. This author probably writes great textbooks. But a novelist he is not.
• 
  Gustavo Rodríguez

  Una novela en línea con 1984 de Orwell, dónde, desde un planteo ficticio, procura desglosar los principios de socialismo y liberalismo.
  El libro está muy bien, se lee bastante fácil, es claro, didáctico de algún modo y de una vigencia implacable.
  Cómo puntos flojos, se notan forzadas las reflexiones o los conceptos técnicos dentro del contexto de novela.
• 
  David

  An economics lecture thinly disguised as a novel. But a good economics lecture.
• 
  Bob

  An excellent book if you are looking for an easy introduction to economics and free market systems. Although it is similar to classic books like Animal Farm, it is much different in it's purpose. This book is all about helping you to understand how the free market works and how government interference will hinder the market. Basic economic principles are discussed in a light technical fashion which is easy to grasp. The basic plot works as a frame to hold your interest as the author delves into more theoretical topics. It was a fun book to read and helped me to swallow the somewhat harder medicine of economics.
• 
  Bob

  This didactic (that is, a thing to teach) novel is based on the premise that a educated but ignorant dictator would invent capitalism even if he took power over some place like Stalin's Soviet Union. The book is poorly written. It offers intriguing insight as to how socialism continues to progress even though its flaws are more and more plainly evident to scholars. This was a hard book to get ahold of. Before I had seen the dust jacket of this book, I had never seen a picture of Hazlitt. He looks like Robert Douglas who played Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead.
• 
  Jason Vanzin

  If you enjoy movies without a ton of action but with great dialog, then you will enjoy this book. 12 Angry Men is a good example of the type of movie I'm talking about. The dialog between the two main characters Peter and Adams are full on economic insights that you will learn more economics by the time you finish than most get in their economic courses in college.
• 
  June

  My review is not regarding the economics of the book, much of which I agree with. I am rating this novel as a novel, and there was basically no plot in this novel. The entire book was a dialogue between two characters regarding economics. I could not finish it, because of how boring it was. If I wanted to read a treatise on economics, I would have picked up "Economics in One Lesson."
• 
  Scott

  The story feels forced but does make the economics lectures feel less dry.