Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Hayek, Friedrich A.. The Road to Serfdom. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1944.
Price: US$90.49 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: A solid book, no marks or inscriptions. though endpapers aged. first four pages slightly cocked at fromt right corner but does not affect the text. Blue cloth covered boards with slightly faded gilt tile and chain decoration. Minor scuffing to board edges consitent with shelfwear.
Seller: Westside Stories, Hamilton, ON, Canada
Price: US$93.95 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Bound in publisher's blue cloth. 2nd printing. $2.75 price on dust jacket. Hardcover and dust jacket. Good binding and cover. Large tears to dust jacket with loss. Dust jacket in protective mylar cover. Scattered underlining and markings. vi, 248 p., 21 cm. "This spell-binding book is a classic in the history of liberal ideas. It was singularly responsible for launching an important debate on the relationship between political and economic freedom. It made the author a world-famous intellectual. It set a new standard for what it means to be a dissident intellectual. It warned of a new form of despotism enacted in the name of liberation. And though it appeared in 1944, it continues to have a remarkable impact. No one can consider himself well-schooled in modern political ideas without having absorbed its lessons. What F.A. Hayek saw, and what most all his contemporaries missed, was that every step away from the free market and toward government planning represented a compromise of human freedom generally and a step toward a form of dictatorship--and this is true in all times and places. He demonstrated this against every claim that government control was really only a means of increasing social well-being. Hayek said that government planning would make society less livable, more brutal, more despotic. Socialism in all its forms is contrary to freedom. Nazism, he wrote, is not different in kind from Communism. Further, he showed that the very forms of government that England and America were supposedly fighting abroad were being enacted at home, if under a different guise. Further steps down this road, he said, can only end in the abolition of effective liberty for everyone. Capitalism, he wrote, is the only system of economics compatible with human dignity, prosperity, and liberty. To the extent we move away from that system, we empower the worst people in society to manage what they do not understand. The beauty of this book is not only in its analytics but in its style, which is unrelenting and passionate. Even today, the book remains a source of controversy. Socialists who imagine themselves to be against dictatorship cannot abide his argument, and they never stop attempting to refute it." - Mises Institute
Seller: Sequitur Books, Boonsboro, MD, U.S.A.
Friedrich A. Hayek. The Road to Serfdom. University of Chicago Press, 1944.
Price: US$500.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First Edition/2nd Impression; A Very Good or better book lacking the dust jacket. A handsome copy of this highly influential book, being an inspiration to those advocating individualism and classic liberalism; Hayek went on to win a Guggenheim fellowship and a Nobel Prize, and is widely considered to be one of the most important economists of the 20th Century. This copy is in very good or better condition with a square, tight binding, crisp gold lettering over blue boards, a bright red topstain, and clean pages throughout; the book does show some age-toning to the spine lettering and board edges, and some light foxing to the page edges. A highly presentable and collectible copy of this seminal work of 20th Century Economics; Not remaindered, not ex-library; in a protective Mylar cover and will ship in a sturdy box.
Seller: Grayshelf Books, ABAA, IOBA, Tomball, TX, U.S.A.
HAYEK, F.A.. The Road to Serfdom. London: George Routledge & Sons Ltd. April, 1944., 1944.
Price: US$644.13 + shipping
Description: Second impression. 8vo. viii, 184 pp. Publisher's black cloth, gilt lettered to the spine, early gift inscription to the front free endpaper. Neatly rebacked preserving all but the head of the spine, very good. Friedrich August Hayek's most famous work setting out many tenets of his theory of Classical Liberalism. Written in Britain during the early years of the Second World War, Hayek argued that the fascist and socialist dictatorships of the 1920s and 30s had much in common, not least their insistence on the strict governmental control of state planning, especially of the economy. In his opinion such strict central control, regardless of stripe, could only lead to totalitarianism, i.e. de Tocqueville's "road to servitude", and that true liberty could only be gained by individualism and greater levels of self determination. Published in the same format as the first printing issued the previous month, neither edition is common due to the wartime economy and the publisher's underestimation of the book's impact. This led to Routledge reissuing it in Britain several times later in the year and many times thereafter. The US edition was published by the University of Chicago, where Hayek was a professor between 1950 and 1962.
Seller: Bow Windows Bookshop (ABA, ILAB), Lewes, United Kingdom
Friedrich A. Hayek. The Road to Serfdom. University of Chicago Press, 1944.
Price: US$1400.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First Edition/Third Impression, printed just a couple of weeks after the first printing; A Near Fine book in a Very Good dust jacket. An outstanding copy of this highly influential book, being an inspiration to those advocating individualism and classic liberalism; Hayek went on to win a Guggenheim fellowship and a Nobel Prize, and is widely considered to be one of the most important economists of the 20th Century. This copy is in near fine condition with a square, tight binding, crisp gold lettering over blue boards, a bright red top stain, and clean pages throughout; the book shows light rubbing the edges and some faint soiling to the text block, else fine. Housed in a clean and crisp original very good dust jacket that shows minor rubbing and chipping to the panel edges and corners, some mild fading to the front panel, some light creasing to the flaps, and a large chip to the top of the front panel at the spine head. Overall, a highly presentable and collectible copy; scarce in the early printing, especially in the original jacket. Not remaindered, not price clipped ($2.75 intact), not ex-library; in a fresh Mylar sleeve and will ship carefully wrapped in a sturdy box.
Seller: Grayshelf Books, ABAA, IOBA, Tomball, TX, U.S.A.
Price: US$1500.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Selected by both the New York Public Library and The Times Literary Supplement [London] as one of the 100 most influential books of the 20th century. Warned the free nations that the extended collectivism toward which they were gradually veering was incompatible with democracy, and that social planning, as interpreted then, might eventually cause the end of all individual freedom, political as well as economic. xii, 250 p. Index. Third printing from October 1944, a month after the first printing. Moderate peripheral tanning to clean and unmarked contents. Binding intact. Average wear and some sunning to publisher's blue cloth. Includes new replica of the 6th printing dust jacket preserved in archival-grade Brodart. A sound copy of this most prescient work. Cody & Ostrem B-6, Machlup B-6, Pressman [2e] p.180. ; 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall; The Road To Serfdom Liberty Freedom Lliberterian Von Mises austrian School Economics Monetary Theorist Banking Free Most Influential Books 20th Century
Seller: RareNonFiction, IOBA, Ladysmith, BC, Canada
Hayek, Friedrich August von [F.A.]. The Road to Serfdom.. University of Chicago, Chicago, 1944.
Price: US$3800.00 + shipping
Description: First edition of one of the most influential and popular expositions of classical liberalism. Octavo, bound in full morocco by the Harcourt Bindery, gilt titles and tooling to the spine in compartments within raised gilt bands, gilt ruling to the front and rear panels, gilt inner dentelles stamp-signed by the Harcourt Bindery, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. In fine condition. Foreword by John Chamberlain. First editions are rare. "Hayek has written one of the most important books of our generation. It restates for our time the issue between liberty and authority with the power and rigor of reasoning that John Stuart Mill stated in his great essay, On Liberty" (Hazlitt, 82). [I]n my opinion it is a grand book. . . . Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it: and not only in agreement with it, but in deeply moved agreement" (John Maynard Keynes). The Road To Serfdom placed fourth on the list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the twentieth century by National Review magazine.
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.
Price: US$5750.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Xi, 250 Pp. Blue Cloth, Gilt. First Printing, 1944. Light Wear With A Single Tiny Point Of Fraying At Base Of Spine; Spine Gilt All Present And Lettering All Clear, Spine Cloth A Little Faded. Covers Clean With Some Loss Of Color In A Thin Line And In A Small Spot On Front Cover. Publisher's Red Top Stain Without Spotting. Pages Just A Little Aged, Even Aging To Endpapers, No Foxing. No Names, A Few Pencil Marks In Text.The Ultimate Academic Statement That Government Will Not Offer Protection Against Commercial Bullies, Polluters, Liars And Sociopaths Of All Kinds, Arguing That This Passivity Is Somehow In The Best Interests Of The People; Also The Ultimate Statement That Academic Economists Are Somehow Experts In The Determination And Evaluation Of What Those Best Interests Are ( Otherwise They Could Not Make This Recommendation For Passivity!) The Epitome Of Specious Reasoning, Of Immense Appeal To Those For Whom Specious Reasoning In The Public Sphere Is Very Much In Their Best (Personal) Interests. However, The Book Also Rightfully Directs Attention To The Sociopathy Of Government Itself, And Its Pervasive Ignorance, Immorality, And Incompetence, Which Any Review Of 10,000 Years Of Human History Will Fully Support. Unfortunately, Hayek Cannot Escape His Own Role As A Sophistic Academic Interpreter Of Economics For The Masses, Promoting The Sole Interest Of The Ruler, As Has Occurred Also For 10,000 Years.
Seller: Arroyo Seco Books, Pasadena, Member IOBA, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A.
HAYEK Friedrich August von. The Road to Serfdom. , 1944.
Price: US$7729.58 + shipping
Description: First edition, first printing. 8vo. viii, 184 pp. Original black cloth, spine lettered in gilt (small amount of very faint spotting to endpapers and edges of text block, otherwise internally completely clean and unmarked; just a hint of rubbing to tips of spine and corners, a near fine copy). London, George Routledge & Sons Ltd. Hayek's classic polemic against centralisation and collectivism, among the most influential and popular expositions of classical liberalism and libertarianism, was ?far and away the most eloquent and straightforward statement of his political and economic outlook that Hayek ever achieved? (ODNB). Though in the short term the book failed to halt the rapid extension of government power into economic life, over the next few decades the book inspired countless proponents of economic liberty, became a foundation of the revival of liberal economics, and was adopted as a guiding text in the Thatcher and Reagan projects. An American edition of the book appeared later in the same year, published by the University of Chicago Press. Cody & Ostrem B-6.
Seller: Maggs Bros. Ltd ABA, ILAB, PBFA, BA, London, United Kingdom
Hayek, Friedrich August von [F.A.]. The Road to Serfdom.. University of Chicago, Chicago, 1944.
Price: US$8800.00 + shipping
Description: First edition of one of the most influential and popular expositions of classical liberalism. Octavo, original cloth. Near fine in a very good dust jacket with two small chips to the front panel. Foreword by John Chamberlain. First editions are rare. "Hayek has written one of the most important books of our generation. It restates for our time the issue between liberty and authority with the power and rigor of reasoning that John Stuart Mill stated in his great essay, On Liberty" (Hazlitt, 82). [I]n my opinion it is a grand book. . . . Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it: and not only in agreement with it, but in deeply moved agreement" (John Maynard Keynes). The Road To Serfdom placed fourth on the list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the twentieth century by National Review magazine.
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.
Price: US$400000.00 + shipping
Description: First edition of one of the most influential and popular expositions of classical liberalism ever published. Octavo, original black cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "To Dr Karl Popper a fellow struggler for freedom with friendly greetings from F.H. Hayek." Also included is a letter signed by Karl Popper to his assistant Melitta Mew, presenting her with this book as a birthday gift (".It is the copy he sent me to New Zealand on publication of the book, with a beautiful dedication. And thank you for everything you are doing for my work (and me). Karl"), on his stationery of 136 Welcomes Road, Kenley, Surrey, and dated 23 January 1994. While this book was very special to Popper, he had been diagnosed with cancer and passed away from complications in September. Ms. Mew helped to put together Popper's lectures and essays in a book, which was published in 1996: "In search of a better world : lectures and essays from thirty years." Easily the best association copy in existence, as the lives of both of these great economists, Fredrich von Hayek (1899-1992) and Karl Popper (1902-1994) greatly impacted the other and their lives were intertwined. They both experienced the destruction of their Bourgeois Viennese families' savings by hyperinflation due to the fragility of the liberal society. While both men studied at the University of Vienna, they first met in London in 1935. Hayek was at that time employed at the London School of Economics and Popper was in the city on a visiting lectureship. While Popper accepted a position in New Zealand, where he was to remain until after World War II, he would also later assume a chair at the LSE, due to Hayek's influence there. Near fine in a good dust jacket. The British edition (which this example is) was published in March of 1944, preceding its American counterpart, which was published later that same year in September. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. "Hayek has written one of the most important books of our generation. It restates for our time the issue between liberty and authority with the power and rigor of reasoning that John Stuart Mill stated in his great essay, On Liberty" (Hazlitt, 82). Its arguments against economic control by the government inspired many politicians and economists. John Maynard Keynes has been quoted as saying, "[I]n my opinion it is a grand book. . . . Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it: and not only in agreement with it, but in deeply moved agreement." While the Road To Serfdom placed fourth on the list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the twentieth century by National Review magazine, it was not as popular at the time of its writing, and Karl Popper was one of Hayek's few intellectual allies. He shared many of Hayek's views and Hayek even read the manuscript of Popper's own work, The Open Society and Its Enemies, prior to his publication of this book.
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.