My first book on economics was Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers. I would still recommend it for a starting point. It is a series of biographical sketches set in time and accompanied by a discussion of the contributions of each economist covered. Another relatively early work for me was Muller's Adam Smith in his time and ours

The Global Minotaur by Yanis Varoufakis is a really good read with an excellent survey of economic history and the accompanying political economics from WW II to the present. To understand the social dimension of what economics has wrought I recommend Karl Polanyi's superb The Great Transformation 1944. It is a combination of the early social and economic history of England on the eve of the Industrial Revolution through the transformation of English society into a market economy plus the impact of that transformation in other countries.  It will show the reader just what that meant. A foundational work neglected because it is too revealing.  

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."