The Economist Pocket World in Figures, 2002 Edition

Originally published in 2002 in The Business Economist, volume 33, issue 1. The original publication day is unrecorded.

Profile Books, 2001, 238 pages, £10.99.

From The Business Economist, volume 33, issue 1 (2002).

Although the series of Economist Pocket books are not new, it may be helpful to be reminded of their existence and to note that they are regularly updated. For those not familiar with them, they are among a number of ‘quick reference’ works for business folk – there is even one on The Pocket Economist – in a ‘slim’ format (19.5mm x 9.5mm) packed with facts and figures set out in a variety of arrangements.

Pocket Asia has a short section of statistical tables of country rankings on living standards and economic topics followed by 36 short descriptive country chapters, including some statistics.

The other two volumes are entirely statistical. About half of Pocket World in Figures (1st edition reviewed in The Business Economist, Vol 22, No 3, Summer 1991) has country-ranked tables of economic and social data, the other half are double-page spreads of figures for 65 countries. Most of Pocket Europe in Figures contains economic and social statistics in country-ranked layout for 48 countries with just a few tables in alphabetical order. There is a short final section on the European Union.

Inevitably and inexorably descriptive figures change with the passage of time and as long as books are not rendered obsolete by the electronic media, for those who need to have at their fingertips, if not actually in their pockets, the sort of information these books provide, they take up little space and are relatively low cost. If you are obsessed with ‘league’ tables, the Pocket Figures books are for you.

Archived source: 2002-05-09 website capture.