My Years with Ludwig von Mises.pdf - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

In regard to your request about von Mises" NationaloekQnomie. ...
My own belief that it is important that it be published here is based
on my knowledge of all the work of von Mises that has been published
or translated into English as well as the knowledge I have
gained from conversations with him. I should like to say that in my
opinion, excellent as the two books are that the Yale University Press
has already published, the works that hitherto have been translated
out of the original German are even better and more important. These
are his works on Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis
and The Theory ofMoney and Credit. The first of these volumes was
the first Mises volume I had ever read. It struck me as by far the most
profound and important critique of the whole theory and implications
of socialism that has ever been written-not excluding the classic
work of Boehm-Bawerk, which was narrower in scope. Mises"
Theory of Money and Credit, Professor Lionel Robbins of the London
School of Economics wrote in his introduction, "has long been
regarded as the standard text book on the subject"" in continental
circles.
Nationaloekonomie is von Mises" book on general economic principles.
It is the central trunk, so to speak, of which the subject discussed
in his book on money and his book on socialism are merely
the branches .. It is the fundamental theory of which the conclusions
in the books on Socialism and Money are the corollaries.
It is many years since a first-rate comprehensive book on basic
economic principles has appeared in English. I think, therefore, that
a book by Mises translated and brought up to date would have a very
important effect on economic thought in America.
On February 1, 1945,Lu had a letter from Professor Hayek, in
which Hayek informed Lu that he would be lecturing in April at
Columbia, Chicago, Wisconsin, Oklahoma and Stanford universities
and would see us in the first days of April. Lu wrote to Hayek
on February 23, 1945:
The news of your impending lecture tour· is very gratifying. It is
almost a public sensation. You probably do not realize how great the
success of your book is [The Road to Serfdom], and how popular you
are in this country.... The Yale Press plans to publish a revised
English edition of my Nationaloekonomie. I have already started to
write it. But as the book is rather voluminous and its publication
involves a considerable investment, the Press"s new Board wants to
have a statement on the book"s importance from a renowned economist.
As practically no American economist·reads foreign language
books, you are the only scholar who could write such an appraisal. ...
In July, 1945, Lu sent Yale University Press' Donaldson another
explanatory letter about Nationaloekonomie, telling him:
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