Volume 6, No. 1 (Spring 2003)
Every economist who regards himself or herself as a free-market theorist and advocate should acquire, read, and retain this paean to planning and interventionism as a valuable reference—especially if he or she is also a political libertarian. There are four good reasons: (1) it names names and carefully chronicles crucial events in a veritable family history of mainstream American statist economics and economists in the twentieth century; (2) it is very carefully referenced and contains extensive literature citations and a lengthy and admirable bibliography; (3) it provides a very defensive, almost stereotypical, Keynesian (in the Leijonhufud sense of the term) view of twentieth-century economic history and policy; and (4) it will provide several good laughs because of the author’s naïvely worshipful attitude toward economic fascism and his ingenuity in historical interpretation.
