I just finished The Making of Modern Economics by Mark Skousen.

this is a masterful history of economics from Adam Smith to Karl Marx to John Maynard Keynes to Friedrich Hayek to Milton Friedman. Skousen has a bias towards the Adam Smith school of economics but deftly describes all sides as well as a bit of the individuals who made economics come to life. This 19 hour audio-book was long but full of interesting information — especially for someone like me that has never taken an economics course and did not have a great grounding in all the different theories.

Summation: i very much recommend this book to anyone who wants a deeper understand of the world, its finances, and its monetary history for the last 250 years.