The author invites us to look at major US economic events from the past two centuries not just as a simple mix of economic policies and indicators, but also in the light of prevailing economic narratives that spread virally throughout the population. The author establishes a link between the spread of economic narratives and epidemiology – the science of how diseases spread –, and a significant part of the book is dedicated to the historical analysis of the spread and various mutations of popular economic narratives. The book concludes with excellent suggestions for future narrative economics research methods and the types of long-term data we should be gathering to advance a scientific approach to the subject. Overall, the book offers an intriguing new perspective for economics that finally acknowledges the complexity of humans as social beings that are shaped by the stories we tell each other.