What to study to become a self taught economist?

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I need your opinions, I don't have a clear path, I'll be happy to receive some advice.

What path do you guys think that I should follow to self-learn economics?

I'm a future phd student in economic history. I have a background in History, but I lack of formal education in economics (and I think that I have to become an economist to be an economic historian).

In a shopping frenzy, I bought a lot of books to self teach me economics, but now I think that it was overkill: precalc, trig, calc, linear algebra, dif eq, real analysis, mathematical statistics, macro, micro and econometrics.

I don't think that I could cover this material during my entire life, having a full time job and a future academic life. I'm mostly interested in macro, especially financial crisis. My approach has been to start from the ground up, but it is slow. Now, I think that I should be studying the more difficult stuff first and only go back to previous texts if needed. This is my plan:

  1. Macro.
  2. Micro.
  3. Calculus.
  4. Mathematical Statistics.
  5. Econometrics plus Econometrics with R.

One possibility is, after 1 and 2, to start right away with 5 and only go to 3 and 4 when needed.

PS: the full list of books I bought:

  1. Precalculus (Stewart et al.).
  2. Trigonometry (Gelfand et Saul).
  3. Calculus Early Trascendentals (Stewart).
  4. Linear Algebra Done Right (Axler).
  5. Differential Equations and Linear Algebra (Strang).
  6. A Course of Probability (Weiss).
  7. Mathematical Statistics (Wackerly et al.).
  8. Macroeconomics (Blanchard).
  9. Microeconomics (Perloff).
  10. Introduction to Econometrics (Stock et Watson).

Posted Jun 24, 2026, 6:12 PM UTC

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