
Samuelson Friedman
The Battle Over the Free Market
Nicholas Wapshott(Author)
WW Norton & Co (Publisher)
Published on 3. September 2021
Book
Hardback
384 pages
978-0-393-28518-5 (ISBN)
Description
In 1966 two columnists joined Newsweek magazine. Their assignment: debate the world of business and economics. Paul Samuelson was a towering figure in Keynesian economics, which supported the management of the economy along lines prescribed by John Maynard Keynes's General Theory. Milton Friedman, little known at that time outside conservative academic circles, championed "monetarism" and insisted the Federal Reserve maintain tight control over the amount of money circulating in the economy.
In the nimble hands of author and journalist Nicholas Wapshott, Samuelson and Friedman's decades-long argument becomes a window through which to view one of the longest periods of economic turmoil in the United States. As the soaring economy of the 1950s gave way to decades stalked by declining prosperity and "stagflation", it was a time when the theory and practice of economics became the preoccupation of politicians and the focus of national debate. It is an argument that continues today.
In the nimble hands of author and journalist Nicholas Wapshott, Samuelson and Friedman's decades-long argument becomes a window through which to view one of the longest periods of economic turmoil in the United States. As the soaring economy of the 1950s gave way to decades stalked by declining prosperity and "stagflation", it was a time when the theory and practice of economics became the preoccupation of politicians and the focus of national debate. It is an argument that continues today.
Reviews / Votes
"Summarising the debate between the two most important economists of the second half of the 20th century might seem like a monumental task, best consigned to specialist textbooks. But this brave history of the intellectual duel between Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman proves that assumption wrong, with its focus as much on their lives as their ideas." -- Zareer Masani - Literary Review "If you had to name the two most influential economists of the postwar decades, you would not go far wrong if you picked Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman... As Wapshott shows, their arguments over the proper scope of government intervention and the control of inflation echo down to the present." -- Adam Tooze - Financial TimesMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 37 mm
Weight
624 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-393-28518-5 (9780393285185)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
08/2021
W. W. Norton & Company
€26.99
Available for download
Person
Nicholas Wapshott's many books include biographies of Margaret Thatcher and Carol Reed, Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics, and The Sphinx: Franklin Roosevelt, the Isolationists, and the Road to World War II. He lives in New York City.