Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative

An Economist Best Book of 2023 | One of The New York Times 33 Nonfiction Books to Read This Fall | Named a most anticipated fall book by the Chicago Tribune and Bloomberg Wherever you sit on the political spectrum, theres a lot to learn from this book. More than a biography of one controversial person, its an intellectual history of twentieth-century economic thought. Greg Rosalesky, NPRs Planet Money The first full biography of Americas 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. Its no wonder the last decades of the twentieth century have been called the Age of Friedmanor 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 Friedmans 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 Friedmans long-standing collaborations with women, including the economist Anna Schwartz; his complex relationshipswith powerful figures such as the Federal Reservechairman Arthur Burns and the Treasury secretaryGeorge Shultz; and his direct interventions in policymaking at the highest levels. Most of all, Burns explores Friedmans key role in creating a new economic vision and a modern American conservatism. The result is a revelatory biography of Americas first neoliberaland perhaps its last great conservative.