Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
While the problem of 1929 has long been of interest to myself as well
as most Americans, my attention was first specifically drawn to a study
of the Great Depression when Mr. Leonard E. Read, President of the
Foundation for Economic Education, asked me, some years ago, to prepare a
brief paper on the subject. I am very grateful to Mr. Read for being, in
this way, the sparkplug for the present book. Having written the article,
I allowed the subject to remain dormant for several years, amid the press
of other work. At that point, on the warm encouragement of Mr. Richard C.
Cornuelle, now of the Foundation for Voluntary Welfare, I proceeded on
the task of expansion to the present work, an expansion so far-reaching
as to leave few traces of the original sketch. I owe a particular debt to
the Earhart Foundation, without whose aid this study could never have
been written.
My supreme debt is to Professor Ludwig von Mises,
whose monumental theory of business cycles I have used to explain the
causes of the otherwise mysterious 1929 depression. Of all Professor
Mises's notable contributions to economic science, his business cycle
theory is certainly one of the most significant. It is no exaggeration to
say that any study of business cycles not based upon his theoretical
foundation is bound to be a fruitless undertaking.
The responsibility for this work, of course, is entirely my own.