'CONTEMPORARY GUIDE TO ECONOMICS, PEACE AND LAUGHTER'

After such books as The Great Crash 1929 and The Affluent Society it is hardly surprising that Professor Galbraith has often ranked, in literary surveys, as the best non-fiction writer in English. Whatever defence he himself offers for 'The Language of Economies', most of us remain convinced that the subject has not always been presented in the most limpid and digestible prose. But Galbraith has always been different: he has possessed the knack of clarifying the antics of capitalism without entirely endorsing the pretensions of socialism. The essays in this volume are concerned with economic issues, with peace and foreign policy, with his own recollections of contemporary statesmen and writers, and with delightful memories of California, Vermont and Switzerland. And Galbraith's observations on the 'Great Socialist Revival' under Nixon or on economics as a system of belief are as lucid and humorous as his account of Khrushchev meeting the richest men in America or John Steinbeck urging him not to become an ambassador.