The Affluent Society.

GALBRAITH, John Kenneth.

Item Number: 103589

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1958.

Early printing of the economist’s landmark work. Octavo, original cloth with titles to the spine in silver. Boldly signed by John Kenneth Galbraith on the front free endpaper. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with light rubbing.

John Kenneth Galbraith's breakthrough as a best-selling author came with "The Affluent Society" for which he was honored with the American Economic Association's prestigious presidency. The book also influenced both the Great Society program and the rise of the American "counterculture" in the 1960's. Listed on Modern Library's 100 great nonfiction books of the twentieth century. Galbraith's ideas often addressed the influence of the potential market power of large corporations (Dunn and Pressman, 2005). He believed that corporations could become price makers, rather than price takers, by weakening the accepted principle of consumer sovereignty (Galbraith, 1970). This, in turn, allowed corporations to efficiently increase the production of their goods. Named by Modern Library as one of the 100 best non-fiction books of the twentieth century and by The Times Literary Supplement as one of the 100 most influential books since World War II.