The Great Mental Models, Volume 4

Economics and Art

By: Shane Parrish, Rhiannon Beaubien

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

From the New York Times bestselling author of Clear Thinking and Farnam Street founder, Shane Parrish.

The fourth and final installment in the timeless Great Mental Models series.

Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields.

Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back.

Volume 4 of The Great Mental Models series delves into the realms of economics and art, presenting more than twenty-four valuable ideas with clear language and style. This book equips you with an understanding of the dynamics shaping our world. It will teach you strategies to leverage these principles and give you a significant edge in the aspects of life you value most.

Some of the mental models covered in this book include:

• Creative destruction: New innovations must sometimes come at the cost of maintaining the status quo.
• Representation: The depiction of an idea can be visual, but it can also rely on symbols or other ideas.
• Genre: Creative expressions tend to be grouped according to socially constructed norms; while a work can play with or bend genre, it can’t exist outside of genre.

The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.

Critic reviews

“I’m really glad this exists in the world and I can see that I will be recommending it often.”
—Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, founder and CEO of Automattic

“If you’ve read Charlie Munger’s Almanack this is the book you deeply crave in its wake. … Learn the big ideas from the big disciplines and you’ll be able to twist and turn problems in interesting ways at unprecedented speeds. … You owe yourself this book.”
—Simon Eskildsen

“This is what non-fiction books should aspire to be like. Informative, concise, universal, practical, visual, sharing stories and examples for context. Definitely, a must-read if you’re into universal multi-disciplinary thinking.”
—Carl Rannaberg

“I can truly say it is one of the best books I’ve ever had the pleasure of getting lost in. I loved the book and the challenges to conventional wisdom and thinking it presents.”
—Rod Berryman

“Want to learn? Read This! This should be a standard text for high school and university students.”
—Code Cubitt

Launchpad for the lattice work

This fourth series provides fundamental models of economics and touches on some fundamentals in art, particularly performance. This work will require revisiting and exploring other fundamental texts to make them useful. I believe this series of books will be fundamental to my self-work for years to come. Charlie Munger would be proud.

Overextended the excellent “Mental Models” series

Unlike the preceding 3 books, the concepts in TGMMv4 lack significant applications or examples outside of their sourced fields (Economics and Art).

Even if you’re a fan of the series, reconsider reading/listening this one.