Reviews for Ludwig von Mises, notes and recollections

The average rating for Ludwig von Mises, notes and recollections based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-08-23 00:00:00 Matt Czermanski Fantastic. Just finished it again after letting it sit on my shelf for almost 40 years, since I first read it all when it came out in 1978, and only having skimmed it for reference and maybe one other full reading in the meantime. It is even better than I remember it. So many insights into: - how important the truth was to Mises. - how much he was fighting against. - what he was able to accomplish in a fairly short and very packed period of time. - how difficult it was to overcome the depression of pessimism that took the energy and productiveness from so many great minds: Carl Menger and Max Weber just to name a couple he details. - his insights in what were the more important things he did in his life - and it was not the politics - etc. For the first and that last point, here is a quote of his from p. 75: "In science, compromises are treasons to truth. In politics, compromises are unavoidable..." Anyone interested in Ludwig von Mises should find many nuggets of gold in this book. And the more one knows the works of Mises, the more one will enjoy and profit from this book. For anyone who thinks Paul Krugman is disgusting and a threat to humanity, or at least the US, check out Mises' description of an intellectual nemesis of his in Europe in the early part of the century, Werner Sombart, on pp. 102-3 --- Tucked in my copy of the book I also noticed: 1. A hand written receipt for 3 copies of this book and some other books from Libertarian Press, (Frederick Nymeyer) the publisher, on his own onion skin paper stationary and in his own hand, dated 2-24-1978. 2. A copy of the Wall Street Journal article: "The Evolution - and Ordeal - of an Economist" by Henry Hazlitt, 9 Feb. 1978 reviewing the book.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-05-02 00:00:00 Lindsay Malinchak A moving and intimate book from a genius who "set out to be a reformer, but only became the historian of decline." I believe one cannot fully understand Human Action: A Treatise on Economics unless one has read this one. It is the book that puts Mises's life into perspective, from his own point of view, at a time when he was desolate and really without knowing what would happen next in his life. He had been through so much and now was 60 years old, alone with his wife, having to find his way in a new country (USA), where his old imperial Austrian prestige would only be a further burden. There's also some interesting theoretical discussions on the method of economics. So, all in all, an essential book for everyone who wants to understand the Austrian Economics movement. for a nice short comment on this book's relevance, see this post by Peter Boettke: