Skip Navigation
Matthew Yglesias

Matthew Yglesias - Matthew Yglesias is a fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
More

Matthew Yglesias is a fellow at the Center for American Progress. His first book, with the working title Heads in the Sand: Iraq and the Strange Death of Liberal Internationalism, scheduled to be published next spring by John Wiley and co., deals with the Democratic Party's struggle to find a post-9/11 foreign policy, focusing primarily on the rise and (hopefully) fall of the liberal hawk movement.

Previously, he was a staff writer at The American Prospect and an Associate Editor at TPM Media, where he contributed to the group blogs Tapped and TPMCafe. His main blog, now at The Atlantic, has existed in various forms since the dark ages of the blogosphere in January 2002.

His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Slate, The New Republic, and The Washington Monthly, and he is a regular on BloggingHeads.tv and makes the occasional radio or television appearance.

Desperately out of touch with the American mainstream, Yglesias was born and raised in Manhattan and studied philosophy at Harvard where he was editor in chief of The Harvard Independent, a campus alternative weekly.

His latest writings can be found on the Matthew Yglesias blog.

« Previous Politics | Next Politics » Email Email Print Print

Freeloading

By Matthew Yglesias

Dec 14 2007, 8:36 AM ET Comment

Timothy Taylor, who Brad DeLong describes as the best intro economics teacher he knows has a new basic econ textbook out. And it's available for free!

The publisher, Freeload Press, will earn revenue by selling advertising on the website where the book is distributed. Also, when you download chapters (as PDF files), the first couple of pages might be advertisements. There is a short registration form, but downloads are free. If someone wants an advertising-free, black-and-white paper copy, it's available for $30 at the website ($20 for a micro or a macro split). There will soon be a workbook up on the website to accompany the text, and a test bank is already available for instructors. The website for Freeload Press is http://www.freeloadpress.com.

Is an advertising supported approach a sustainable business model for a textbook company?


I kind of suspect that it may not. On the other hand, as a K-12 endeavor I think things like the California Open Source Textbook Project have a lot of promise. As they observe, "California currently spends more than $400M annually — and rising — for K-12 textbooks" and of course California's not the only state in the country. If any substantial chunk of national K-12 textbook spending by public institutions could be redirected toward open source textbooks, I think you'd do a lot of good.

Presented by

More at The Atlantic

Mourning in America: Whitney Houston and the Social Speed of Grief Houston's Death and the Social Speed of Grief
A Short Animated Biography of tHOMAS Edison The Life of Thomas Edison, Animated
We Don't Need a Digital sabbath, We Need More Time You Don't Need a Break From Technology
Love Stinks: An Economic Manifesto Love (on the Internet) Stinks
Where Have All the Deficit Hawks Gone? Where Have All the Deficit Hawks Gone?

Join the Discussion

After you comment, click Post. If you’re not already logged in you will be asked to log in or register.
blog comments powered by Disqus
Special Report
The Next Global Economies Reuters The Next Global Economies
Lessons from the BRICs — and a look at which developing countries are on the rise. Read more ›

Just In

Correspondents

View All Correspondents

The Biggest Story in Photos

Valentine's Day 2012

Feb 14, 2012

Subscribe Now

SAVE 59%! 10 issues JUST $2.45 PER COPY

Facebook

Newsletters

Sign up to receive our free newsletters

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)