The Constitution of Liberty.

First UK edition. 8vo. x, 570 pp. Original yellow cloth, spine lettered in gilt on blue ground, dust jacket (partial offsetting to endpapers as usual, otherwise internally clean and unmarked; some trivial shelf wear and a few tiny nicks to extremities of jacket, otherwise a very fine, notably bright copy). London, Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Hayek’s 'positive statement of the principles of free society that in scope and breadth is more like a new Wealth of Nations' (dust jacket blurb), the 'masterpiece of his middle years' (Blaug). Along with The Road to Serfdom, The Constitution of Liberty became a canonical text of the neoliberal revival of the 1960s and 70s.

Hayek's Constitution of Liberty is often associated with the name of Margaret Thatcher who infamously brought her own copy of the book to a Conservative Party policy meeting, slammed it down on the table and declared, 'This is what we believe.' Despite the major influence of Hayek on both Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, it is apparent that they quietly disregarded Hayek's postscript to the book on 'Why I Am Not a Conservative'.

The book was written to mark the hundredth anniversary of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, although it was in fact published a year late in 1960. An American edition by Routledge & Kegan Paul appeared in the same year with no established precedence. However, the present UK edition is decidedly less common, especially in such excellent condition.

Cody & Ostrem, B-12.

Stock Code: 252073