The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.

Scarce in the dustjacket. The first edition of Keynes' masterwork, scarce in the original unclipped dustjacket. Written in the aftermath of the great depression, The General Theory is regarded as one of the most influential social science treatises of the century; it quickly and permanently changed the way the world looked at the economy and the role of government in society. This is the book 'on which [Keynes'] fame as the outstanding economist of his generation must rest' (ODNB).

After the 1929 crash, Keynes analysed the classical school of economists, 'and found them seriously inadequate and inaccurate. [...] A national budget, over and above its function of providing a national income, should be used as a major instrument in planning the national economy. The regulation of the trade-cycle [...] must be the responsibility of governments. Lost equilibrium in a national economy could and should be restored by official action and not abandoned to laisser (sic) faire. [The General Theory] threw the economists of the world into two violently opposed camps. Yet eight years later Keynes was to dominate the international conference at Bretton Woods, out of which came the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank; and his influence during the ensuing decades, even on his theoretical opponents, has been such that a highly placed American official recently remarked that 'we are all Keynesians today' (PMM).

First edition, first impression; 8vo (22.5 x 14.5 cm); internally clean; publisher's blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt, very minor wear to extremities, otherwise near fine, unclipped typographic dustjacket, edges a little chipped with minor loss, neatly conserved, rear hinge of jacket with repaired split, [2], xii, 403, [1]pp.

PMM 423; Moggridge A10.