Episode Details

I thought that before turning to the present-day literature, it would be helpful to take a look at the state of monetary thought at the outset of World War I, in order to appreciate the progress that had been achieved since then. I opened the book at Christmas of 1992 and was in for a great surprise. This old master excelled in clarity of expression, and he had dealt with a subject of immense importance—the nature, causes, and consequences of the subjective value of money. From my previous studies I knew that this topic had not made it into the standard texts in money and banking. Mises demonstrated that this omission had been a grave error.