“The Chile Project is wonderful. I haven’t enjoyed—or learned so much—from a book in a long time. It does a wonderful job of analyzing something many of us are thinking about, the flaws in mainstream economics, and doing it in the specific context of Chile, and with deep personal knowledge of both the Chicago and Chilean economists who were involved in the story.”—Angus Deaton, Nobel Prize–winning economist and coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Deaths of Despair“The Chile Project is a gripping account by a fine writer and economist of how economists and their ideas have influenced, or tried to influence, political and economic arrangements in Chile starting in the early 1970s, continuing until today. Tensions between liberalism and authority, and between equalities and efficiencies, run through the story. I couldn’t put this book down. The story fascinates and bothers me.”—Thomas J. Sargent, Nobel Prize–winning economist“The Chile Project is an eye-opener. I lived through the Chicago end of the story, but Sebastian Edwards illuminates the whole episode. I knew all the actors but didn’t know the play until I read the book. It is an excellent book.”—James J. Heckman, Nobel Prize–winning economist“A fascinating account of how the ‘Chicago Boys’ came to dominate Chilean policymaking under Pinochet and beyond. Edwards doesn’t hide his own sympathies for their ideas. But even critics of Chicago-style economics will benefit from this finely detailed story about how once-outlandish ideas, scorned by politicians and businesspeople alike, became the established norm.”—Dani Rodrik, author of Straight Talk on Trade"In this well-written, deeply researched, and novel history, Edwards brilliantly shows how free-market economics first won and then lost the war of political ideas."—John H. Cochrane, author of The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level“Liberalism is the strange modern notion that no one should have a master, no one should be a slave to husband or state functionary. Edwards shows from the inside, with massive documentation expressed in vigorous prose, that true liberalism must always be defended rhetorically. The tragedy of Chile, and of some other neoliberalisms, is that the economists whom I and others taught in the 1970s at the University of Chicago went home and made a deal with an authoritarian devil. Imposing liberalism does not produce a culture of liberty. It must grow, as it can, in the human heart.”—Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, author of Why Liberalism Works“The ‘Chicago Boys’—Chilean scholars trained in neoliberal economics in Chicago—are credited and blamed for everything that has gone right and wrong in their country. Sebastian Edwards trains new light on their history and shows how it illuminates everything from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet to the nationwide protests of 2019–2020, the election of President Gabriel Boric in 2021, and the unsuccessful constitutional referendum of 2022. A highly original window on fifty years of Chilean political and economic history.”—Barry Eichengreen, author of The Populist Temptation“The Chile Project is outstanding, and the story it tells is filled with important lessons for the future of Latin America, the discipline of economics, and economic policymaking. An insider who writes in a lively way, Sebastian Edwards gives meticulous attention to narrative details and has a deep understanding of economics, the history of economic thinking, and Chilean history. There is no book like it.”—Charles Calomiris, coauthor of Fragile by Design