keynes

"To understand my state of mind, however, you have to know that I believe myself to be writing a book on economic theory which will largely revolutionize–not, I suppose, at once but in the course of the next ten years–the way the world thinks about economic problems. When my new theory has been duly assimilated and mixed with politics and feelings and passions, I can’t predict what the upshot will be in its effects on actions and affairs. But there will be a great change…"

-John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes's General Theory,
first edition in exceptionally fine condition

KEYNES, John Maynard. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. London: MacMillan & Co., Ltd, 1936. Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket. $9500.

First edition of one of the most important books in economic history. An outstanding copy.

Often mentioned alongside Smith's Wealth of Nations and Marx's Das Kapital, the General Theory is the foundation of Keynesian economics, the most influential economic system of the twentieth-century. "The world-wide slump after 1929 prompted Keynes to attempt an explanation of, and new methods for controlling, the vagaries of the trade cycle... In his General Theory, he subjected the definitions and theories of the classical school of economists to a penetrating scrutiny and found them seriously inadequate and inaccurate. By-passing what he termed the 'underworlds' of Marx, Gesell and Major Douglas, he propounded a hardly less unorthodox programme for national and international official monetary policies... Keynes was to dominate the international conference at Bretton Woods, out of which came the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; and his influence during the ensuing decades, even on his theoretical opponents, has been such that a highly placed American official recently remarked that 'we are all Keynesians today'". Printing and the Mind of Man, 423. Book fine; dust jacket in a remarkable state of preservation without the usual fading, chipping, or discoloration; only the slightest wear to the bottom of the spine. As fine a copy as one can hope to obtain.