Deirdre N. McCloskey is Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Among her many books are The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce; Crossing: A Memoir; The Secret Sins of Economics; and If You're So Smart: The Narrative of Economic Expertise, all published by the University of Chicago Press.

"Bourgeois Dignity is packed with ideas: a fact in every sentence, an idea on every page." (Times Higher Education) "The discussions [in Bourgeois Dignity] are intellectually serious but not academically dry or overly technical.... [An] entertaining and informative study." (National Review) "McCloskey's main argument is that when business became a suitable topic for those in the Western bourgeois class, they began to encourage economic innovations both with their money and with their supportive rhetoric. This support of the business world is what caused the growth in wealth of western nations and not in other societies or civilizations." (Chicago Tribune) "Deirdre McCloskey is an outrageously prolific and always fascinating economist and writer.... Bourgeois Dignity is only the latest chapter in what has to be one of the most interesting scholarly careers in America today." (Boston Globe)"