Milton Friedman

An Economist Best Book of 2023 | One of The New York Timesâ 33 Nonfiction Books to Read This Fall | Named a most anticipated fall book by the Chicago Tribune and Bloomberg | Finalist for the 2024 Hayek Book Prize

âWherever you sit on the political spectrum, thereâs a lot to learn from this book. More than a biography of one controversial person, itâs an intellectual history of twentieth-century economic thought.â â"Greg Rosalesky, NPRâs Planet Money

The first full biography of Americaâs 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. Itâs no wonder the last decades of the twentieth century have been called âthe Age of Friedmanââ"or 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 Friedmanâs 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 Friedmanâs long-standing collaborations with women, including the economist Anna Schwartz; his complex relationships with powerful figures such as the Federal Reserve chairman Arthur Burns and the Treasury secretary George Shultz; and his direct interventions in policymaking at the highest levels. Most of all, Burns explores Friedmanâs key role in creating a new economic vision and a modern American conservatism. The result is a revelatory biography of Americaâs first neoliberalâ"and perhaps its last great conservative.