Books

First edition, first impression, of the great economist's most comprehensive work on monetary theory, anticipating many of the ideas of the General Theory. It was "the product of a long intellectual struggle to escape from the ideas in which he had been reared, later dubbed 'classical economics'; for example, the Ricardian view that supply creates its own demand. The focus of the book was on money and prices rather than on output and employment: it contained a full study of the operation of the monetary system, national and international. Fluctuations in prices were no longer explained in terms of changes in the stock of money as in the quantity theory, but in terms of the pressure of demand on the available supply of resources; and the pressure of demand was represented as varying with the magnitude of any divergence between the volume of investment and the availability of savings to finance it" (ODNB). Two vols, octavo. Original blue cloth, spines lettered and ruled in gilt, covers ruled in blind. Tables and diagrams in the text. Infrequent ink sidelining and annotations to Volume II. Minor bumping and rubbing to extremities, affecting text to spine of Volume II, faint toning to spines, light finger soiling to edges: a very good copy. Moggridge A7.1.