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An early duplicated typescript copy, inscribed by the Nobel Prize-winning economist to a contemporary student: "for Harry G. Jones, '48, Original Guinea-Pig, Paul A Samuelson, MIT, October '88". Samuelson's work remains the world's best-selling economics textbook, the primer for a generation of young economists. After the Second World War, MIT asked all its science and engineering students to undertake an introductory course on economics, in preparation for future business careers. Paul A. Samuelson (1915-2009), then professor in the economics department, agreed to write a textbook for those without specialist knowledge of the discipline. Prior to the first commercial edition, by McGraw-Hill in 1948, the work was distributed to MIT students in mimeograph. These copies are marked "first" and "second preliminary edition" on the title page, which notes that they are "for private circulation only". These copies include 18 of the 28 chapters printed in the first commercial edition. On publication in 1948, the work was fiercely criticized, particularly for its support of Keynesian demand management policies, seen as tantamount to communism. Samuelson later advised the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the Kennedy administration. Provenance: Harry G. Jones (1924-2020), a financial consultant, with Samuelson's presentation inscription on the title page. Jones graduated from MIT with a Bachelor of Science in engineering in 1948. The compulsory economics module evidently made a big impression on Jones: he went on to study at Harvard Business School and to work in finance for such companies as Mack Trucks. A pencil inscription on the front free endpaper reads: "J. T. Wheeler 1-373 (11-12:30 Tues & Thurs)". This possibly refers to John T. Wheeler (1921-2013), a long-time professor of business administration at UC Berkeley, who received his PhD in Industrial Economics from MIT in 1947. Read more Quarto. Original grey wrappers, front cover lettered and ruled in red. Housed in custom grey cloth solander case. Graphs and tables in the text, contents duplicated typescript. Infrequent side- and underlining in red crayon to contents. Joints professionally restored. Very light rubbing and creasing, a couple of spots of foxing to contents, slight ghosting to front free endpaper: an excellent copy. .

A widely-used economics textbook first published by Paul Samuelson in 1948, often regarded as the authoritative textbook of economics.