John Kenneth Galbraith; His Life, His Politics, His Economics
Martha Stewart (Author photograph) New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. x, 820 pages. Illustrated Dust Jacket. Footnotes. Illustrations. Notes. Index. Some front board weakness noted. DJ has minor wear and soiling. Richard Parker (born November 5, 1946) is an economist from the United States. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Oxford, and has worked for the United Nations Development Programme. Parker co-founded Mother Jones magazine and is on the editorial board of The Nation. He wrote the books The Myth of the Middle Class, Mixed Signals: the Future of Global Television News, and John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics. Parker has held Marshall, Rockefeller, Danforth, Goldsmith, and Bank of America fellowships; and is lecturer in public policy and senior fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, where he teaches courses on modern macroeconomic policy, as well as on the role of religion in American politics and public policy. In June 2008, Parker was elected the 26th President of the liberal political advocacy group Americans for Democratic Action. John Kenneth Galbraith OC (October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006), also known as Ken Galbraith, was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, public official, and intellectual. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through the 2000s. As an economist, he leaned toward post-Keynesian economics from an institutionalist perspective. Galbraith was a long-time Harvard faculty member and stayed with Harvard University for half a century as a professor of economics. He was a prolific author and wrote four dozen books, including several novels, and published more than a thousand articles and essays on various subjects. Among his works was a trilogy on economics, American Capitalism (1952), The Affluent Society (1958), and The New Industrial State (1967). Some of his work has been criticized by economists Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman, Robert Solow, and Thomas Sowell. Galbraith was active in Democratic Party politics, serving in the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. He served as United States Ambassador to India under the Kennedy administration. His political activism, literary output and outspokenness brought him wide fame during his lifetime. Galbraith was one of the few to receive both the World War II Medal of Freedom (1946) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2000) for his public service and contributions to science. The life and times of America's most celebrated economist, assessing his lessons, and warnings, for us today. John Kenneth Galbraith's books, among them The Affluent Society and American Capitalism, are famous for good reason. Written by a scholar renowned for energetic political engagement and irrepressible wit, they are models of provocative good sense that warn prophetically of the dangers of deregulated markets, war in Asia, corporate greed, and stock-market bubbles. Galbraith's work has also deeply, and controversially, influenced his own profession, and in Richard Parker's hands his biography becomes a vital reinterpretation of American economics and public policy. Born and raised on a small Canadian farm, Galbraith began teaching at Harvard during the Depression. He was FDR's price czar during the war and then a senior editor of Fortune before returning to Harvard and to fame as a bestselling writer. Parker shows how, from his early championing of Keynes to his acerbic analysis of America's private wealth and public squalor, Galbraith regularly challenged prevailing theories and policies. And his account of Galbraith's remarkable friendship with John F. Kennedy, whom he served as a close advisor while ambassador to India, is especially relevant for its analysis of the intense, dynamic debates that economists and politicians can have over how America should manage its wealth and power. This masterful chronicle gives color, depth, and meaning to the record of an extraordinary life. Condition: Good / Very good.
Keywords: Maynard Keynes, Harvard, Henry Luce, Adlai Stevenson, Affluent Society, John F. Kennedy, Ambassador, Industrial State, Cold War, Economic Advisors, Price Administration, Arthur Schlesinger, Vietnam War
ISBN: 0374281688
[Book #85136]
Price: $50.00