"NO ONE INTERESTED IN THE FRONTIERS OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND THEORY CAN AFFORD TO IGNORE THIS BOOK"

BOULDING, Kenneth E. A Reconstruction of Economics. New York / London: John Wiley & Sons / Chapman & Hall, (1950). Octavo, original green cloth, original dust jacket. $650.

First edition of the first book to develop award-winning economist Boulding's new insights into supplementing "the techniques of a Newtonian world-view with the formal tools appropriate for a more dynamic and heterogeneous world," a splendid copy in very scarce dust jacket.

"What Boulding sought to do, beginning with his first articles on capital theory, but especially with A Reconstruction of Economics, was to supplement the techniques of a Newtonian world-view with the formal tools appropriate for a more dynamic and heterogeneous world" (Boettke and Prychitko, "Mr. Boulding and the Austrians"). In the 1940s Boulding came "to believe that in order to understand economic reality, one had to look beyond the traditional boundaries of economics… A Reconstruction of Economics was his first book to reflect this new attitude" (Biographical Dictionary of American Economists). This pivotal work, foundational in impact, "urged a theoretical switch from flows to stocks, from incomes to assets, from the prices of labor and capital to their national income shares" (Routledge Dictionary of Economics). "No one interested in the frontiers of economic analysis and theory can afford to ignore this book" (Vickrey, American Economic Review 41:4,671). Boulding himself would later describe Reconstruction as "absolutely crucial to understanding the future of capitalism" (Collected Papers, Vol II). Owner signature may be that of economist Bela Gold, "who sometimes anglicized his name as Bill or William, moved to Washington in the early 1940s to work for the Senate Subcommittee on War Mobilization and then for the Agriculture Department and the Foreign Economic Administrations." Both Bela and his wife Sonia were allegedly recruited by the KGB in the early 1940s. "Both testified to HUAC in 1948 and denied Communist Party membership and any cooperation with Soviet intelligence… After leaving government service Bela secured a teaching position at the University of Pittsburgh business school… By 1981 he was director of research in industrial economics at Case Western Reserve and a member of the Committee on Computer-Aided Manufacturing of the National Research Council" (Haynes and Vassiliev, Spies, 269-70), His books include Explorations in Managerial Economics (1971).

Book fine; slight chipping to rear panel affecting two words, light toning to spine of scarce extremely good dust jacket.