Followers of economist Milton Friedman—of whom I’m one—ought to rely themselves fortunate that Stanford historian Jennifer Burns has written a detailed biography of him. Primarily based on intensive archival analysis that solely a affected person, first‐price historian can do, she covers his mental life in its varied levels from his time in highschool to his loss of life. Alongside the way in which, we see how he struggled within the Nineteen Thirties and even, to some extent, within the Forties to determine his position in academia. Burns additionally reveals in nice element the necessary influences in his life and, later, the numerous methods he has influenced the economics career and the larger world of coverage—on taxes, financial coverage, welfare coverage, and the draft, to call 4 of crucial.
Her ebook is under no circumstances a hagiography. At varied factors, she criticizes Friedman, typically unfairly. She’s additionally a little unfair to his spouse, Rose Friedman, an economist in her personal proper. However that makes Burns’s many constructive evaluations of Milton’s work all of the extra credible.
Though she is, as famous, a historian and never an economist, and typically makes little slips in her financial exposition, her large‐image understanding of economics is spectacular, particularly on one of many hardest points to know: financial coverage. Certainly, she lays out the truth that the Federal Reserve doesn’t immediately management rates of interest higher than many economists I’ve learn.
These are the opening paragraphs of my evaluate of Jennifer Burns’s ebook Milton Friedman: The Final Conservative, Regulation, Summer season 2024.
As I clarify close to the top of the evaluate, I’m not in love with the ebook’s title, to place it mildly. However that’s not crucial a part of my evaluate. I reward many issues within the ebook and criticize a number of.
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