First edition in English. 8vo (220 x 145mm). xxxi, [1], 454, [2] pp. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt (faint partial offsetting to endpapers, otherwise internally clean; some light wear to tips of spine and corners, an excellent copy). London, Macmillan and Co, 1941.
The culmination of Hayek’s work on capital theory and business cycle theory during the 1930s, being in his own words, a ‘highly abstract study of a problem of pure economic theory’ that attempts to establish the ‘fundamentals’ that must serve ‘more concrete work on the processes which we observe in the real world’ (p. v). Critical reception of the book was somewhat muted, stemming in part from accusations of obfuscation, but also owing to the overwhelming influence of the Keynesian revolution, a consensus that would be dramatically challenged with the publication of Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom three years later.
