"A KEY 20TH-CENTURY EXPONENT OF THE AUSTRIAN SCHOOL": FIRST EDITION OF MURRAY ROTHBARD'S DEFINITIVE WORK, AMERICA'S GREAT DEPRESSION

ROTHBARD, Murray N. America's Great Depression. Princeton, New Jersey: D. Van Nostrand, (1963). Octavo, original red cloth, original dust jacket. $2850.

First edition of Rothbard's "intellectual tour de force" (Paul Johnson), his highly influential application of "Mises and Hayek's Austrian business-cycle theory to the Great Depression" in a powerful argument that dissects the policies of Hoover and the Federal Reserve, an exceptional copy in the original dust jacket.

"Rothbard, a scholar of extraordinary range, made major contributions to economics, history, political philosophy and legal theory. He developed and extended the Austrian economics of Ludwig von Mises… and showed the illumination that Austrian theory could bring to economic history in America's Great Depression" (Gordon, Essential Rothbard, 7, 41). In this definitive work Rothbard, "a key 20th-century exponent of the Austrian School… applied Mises and Hayek's Austrian business-cycle theory to the Great Depression after 1929. In line with this theory, he contended that a policy of monetary expansion pursued by the Federal Reserve System during the 1920s led to an artificially created boom… [and] forced the monetary rate of interest below the natural rate." Arguing against government interference in a market correction, Rothbard contends many of "Hoover's policies anticipated the New Deal" (ANB). To historian Paul Johnson, Rothbard's analysis "turned the conventional one on its head… His book is an intellectual tour de force, in that it consists, from start to finish, of a sustained thesis, presented with relentless logic, abundant illustration and great eloquence. I know of few books which bring the world of economic history so vividly to life" (Introduction to Fifth Edition). First edition, first printing: with no statement of edition or printing on the copyright page.

A fine copy.