The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents: The Definitive Edition (The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek) - Hardcover

Hayek, F. A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415035287 ISBN 13: 9780415035286

Publisher: Routledge, 2007

Synopsis

A classic work in political philosophy, intellectual history and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians and scholars for half a century. Originally published in 1944, it was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production. For Hayek, the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

This new edition includes a foreword by series editor and leading Hayek scholar Bruce Caldwell explaining the book's origins and publishing history and assessing common misinterpretations of Hayek's thought.  Caldwell has also standardized and corrected Hayek's references and added helpful new explanatory notes.  Supplemented with an appendix of related materials and forewords to earlier editions by the likes of Milton Friedman, and Hayek himself, this new edition of The Road to Serfdom will be the definitive version of Friedrich Hayek's enduring masterwork.

About this title

Review

"In my opinion it is a grand book. . . . Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it: and not only in agreement with it, but in deeply moved agreement."

--John Maynard Keynes

"A version of a recognized classic text that provides a full and rich context from which to understand its emergence and eventual powerful impact on the course of events and ideas in the twentieth century. . . . The University of Chicago Press and Bruce Caldwell have done an excellent job in dressing up this classic book for both the general reader and scholars in a variety of disciplines and the hiostory of ideas."--Steven Horwitz "EH.Net "

"It takes courage, or something like it, to declare one's offering 'The Definitive Edition'. . . . I have no hesitation, though in describing this as an excellent edition."--Roger Kimball "New Criterion "

From the Back Cover

'This book has become a true classic: essential reading for everyone who is seriously interested in politics in the broadest and least partisan sense.' - Milton Friedman

'The Road to Serfdom' remains one of the all-time classics of twentieth-century intellectual thought. For over half a century, it has inspired politicians and thinkers around the world, and has had a crucial impact on our political and cultural history. With trademark brilliance, Hayek argues convincingly that, while socialist ideals may be tempting, they cannot be accomplished except by means that few would approve of. Addressing economics, fascism, history, socialism and the Holocaust, Hayek unwraps the trappings of socialist ideology. He reveals to the world that little can result from such ideas except oppression and tyranny. Today, more than fifty years on, Hayek's warnings are just as valid as when 'The Road to Serfdom' was first published.

Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992). An eminent Austrian economist and political philosopher, he won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0415035287
• ISBN 13: 9780415035286
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 296
• Editor: Caldwell Bruce