John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics Book

John Kenneth Galbraith has led an extraordinary life. The world's most famous living economist started teaching at Harvard when he was just 25 years old and has sold seven million copies of his four dozen books. One reviewer said Galbraith wrote "history that reads like a poem." During World War II, at age 32, he was named "tsar" of consumer-price controls in the United States, and he later advised three American presidents and served as ambassador to India. Now in his 90s, Galbraith is still active and has received 50 honorary degrees. All this was accomplished by a Canadian born in a tiny Ontario farming hamlet, whose major at an obscure agricultural college wasn't even economics but animal husbandry. Such an irony is typical of Galbraith's renowned iconoclasm, writes Richard Parker in his 820-page biography John Kenneth Galbraith. Parker shows how Galbraith's irreverent views were shaped by the Depression, which helped turn him into a passionate advocate of Keynesian economics, the philosophy that inspired FDR's New Deal. Galbraith later became one of the architects of the expansion of federal social services after World War II. Because of his influence in successive administrations, readers get a fascinating fly-on-the-wall picture of debates and intrigue inside the White House during many of the major crises of the Cold War. Galbraith frequently played crucial behind-the-scenes roles that went beyond the duties of an economist: advising President Kennedy during the Cuba missile crisis, helping Lyndon Johnson write his first speech after Kennedy was assassinated, and opposing the Vietnam War, which became his most passionate cause. He later criticized the dismantling of government programs under Ronald Reagan and seemed to love clashing with conservative economists. Parker managed to sift through a mountain of material from Galbraith's long and lively years to distill an engaging narrative that, like Galbraith's own books, is easily accessible to non-economists. --Alex RoslinRead More

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  • Product Description

    John Kenneth Galbraith is America's most famous economist for good reason. A witty commentator on America's political follies and a versatile author of bestselling books that warn prophetically of the dangers of deregulated markets, corporate greed, and inattention to the costs of our military power (among them The Great Crash and The Affluent Society), Galbraith always makes economics relevant to the crises of the day. This first authorized biography is, in Richard Parker's hands, an important reinterpretation both of public policy and of how economics is practiced.

    Born and raised on a small Canadian farm, Galbraith began to teach at Harvard in 1934, then worked in New Deal Washington, was FDR's "price czar" during the war and an editor at Fortune before returning to Harvard in 1949. From his early championing of Keynes and his acerbic analysis of America's "private wealth and public squalor" to his denunciations of the Vietnam War, Galbraith regularly challenged the "conventional wisdom" (his phrase). Parker's account of Galbraith's friendship with John F. Kennedy, whom he served as ambassador to India, is filled with new insights and information, as are his chapters on Galbraith's responses to the mistakes made by subsequent administrations in managing America's wealth and power. This masterful chronicle gives color, depth, and meaning to the record of an extraordinary life.

  • 0374281688
  • 9780374281687
  • Richard Parker
  • 16 February 2005
  • Farrar Straus Giroux
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 832
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