Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative
by Jennifer Burns
Milton Friedman by Jennifer Burns is a really interesting biography of the brilliant economist who, more than anyone, is credited with turning the idea that markets are good and governments are bad into a reigning ideology in many countries for the last half-century. (For its specific effects in Chile, The Chile Project, also published in 2023, is well worth reading). Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative is, apparently, the first full-length biography of Friedman based on archival research. It’s very readable and a great way into the debates which remain with us, even though Friedman himself died in 2006, at the age of 94.
Books by Milton Friedman, recommended on Five Books
Recommendations from our site
“This excellent biography of Milton Friedman…The book reveals that Friedman is an old-fashioned, classical liberal, not a conservative. But that’s just a slight gripe with the subtitle. The book is reminding us what the case for capitalism is…In the book, Jennifer Burns illustrates that Milton Friedman was much more than a brilliant academic, which I think everyone would agree he was: he got a Nobel Prize for economics. He was highly controversial, and many of his views, particularly on monetarism, are subject to debate. But he was much more a policy person, thinking about the architecture of policy. Of course he had a big role in the framework of Reagan and Thatcher.” Read more...
