That's exactly what I don't like about Mankiw's book, it's a bit all over the shop. I prefer Olivier Blanchard's book, which sacrifices some completeness for cl

That's exactly what I don't like about Mankiw's book, it's a bit all over the shop. I prefer Olivier Blanchard's book, which sacrifices some completeness for clarity - he makes it very clear that IS/LM is a short run model, AS/AD is a medium run model and Solow-Swan is a long run model. In fact, the book is presented in that sequence. In Mankiw's book, Solow-Swan is presented before AS/AD. Mundell-Fleming's open economy model is tucked somewhere in the middle too, which I think should be presented as an extension once the core short, medium and long run models have been established. It was hard enough for me to get my head around price expectations and the AS/AD curves, much less doing it out of the natural sequence.