The first full biography of America's most renowned economist.
Milton Friedman was, alongside John Maynard Keynes, the most influential
economist of the twentieth century. His work was instrumental in the
turn toward free markets that defined the 1980s, and his full-throated
defenses of capitalism and freedom resonated with audiences around the
world. It's no wonder the last decades of the twentieth century have
been called "the Age of Friedman"--or that analysts have sought to hold
him responsible for both the rising prosperity and the social ills of
recent times.
In Milton Friedman, the first full biography to employ archival
sources, the historian Jennifer Burns tells Friedman's extraordinary
story with the nuance it deserves. She provides lucid and lively context
for his groundbreaking work on everything from why dentists earn less
than doctors, to the vital importance of the money supply, to inflation
and the limits of government planning and stimulus. She traces
Friedman's longstanding collaborations with women, including the
economist Anna Schwartz, as well as his complex relationships with
powerful figures such as Fed Chair Arthur Burns and Treasury Secretary
George Shultz, and his direct interventions in policymaking at the
highest levels. Most of all, Burns explores Friedman's key role in
creating a new economic vision and a modern American conservatism. The
result is a revelatory biography of America's first neoliberal--and
perhaps its last great conservative.
