A Contemporary Guide to Economics, Peace, and Laughter

22 cm, xii, 382, [6] p. Index. Some DJ wear and tear. Name on fep. John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 - April 29, 2006), was a Canadian-American economist, public official and diplomat, and a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through the 2000s, a time during which Galbraith fulfilled the role of public intellectual. As an economist, he leaned toward post-Keynesian economics from an institutionalist perspective. Galbraith was a long-time Harvard faculty member and stayed with Harvard Universities a professor of economics. He was a prolific author and wrote four dozen books, including several novels, and published more than a thousand articles and essays on various subjects. Among his works was a trilogy on economics, American Capitalism, The Affluent Society, and The New Industrial State. Some of his work has been criticized by economists Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman and Robert Solow. Galbraith was active in Democratic Party politics, serving in the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. He served as United States Ambassador to India under the Kennedy administration. His political activism, literary output and outspokenness brought him wide fame during his lifetime. Galbraith was one of the few to receive both the World War II Medal of Freedom (1946) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2000) for his public service and contributions to science. The government of France made him a Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur. A collection of essays on politics, economics, peace, human aspirations and happiness, trade, diplomacy, the role of American Presidents within these spheres, the unfolding of modern American history, and various related issues and topics. Derived from a Kirkus review: Articles and lectures, reprinted from the '60s, on economics, contemporaries, and foreign policy, omitting Galbraith's writings on the Vietnam war. The lighter pieces are intelligent and amusing; they provide the most of what people read Galbraith for. These include reviews of Eisenhower, Svetlana, Edwin O'Connor, Acheson, William Buckley; autobiography and reminiscence (the time Khrushchev met the ruling class at Harriman's in 1959), comment on the language of economics, etc. In the economics section, Galbraith takes numerous bows for his prescience on the ecology issue -- which he seems to regard as chiefly a matter of aesthetics; calls for permanent wage-price controls; gives a sharp summary of the 1929 Crash; and in "The Nixon Administration and the Great Socialist Revival" spins a tour de force about government subsidies to sagging corporations. This essay also has the virtue of timeliness. Yet there is enough pleasure and instruction, especially in the reviews, to satisfy the book's audience.…