Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host, Russ Roberts of George Mason University.

My guest today is Milton Friedman. Milton is a senior research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution,

the 1976 Nobel Laureate in Economics, and a hero to millions in the United States and around the world

for his insights and actions on behalf of economics and liberty.

Milton, I'd like our conversation to focus on the ideas contained in two of your books,

a monetary history of the United States, 1870 to 1960, a massive scholarly work, and capitalism and freedom,

a slim monograph on the principles of a free society. Let's begin with the monetary history of the United States.

Written with Anna Schwartz, published in 1963, it was an extraordinarily detailed and careful study

of the role of money in the economy, and among many important insights, it made the case

that inflation is everywhere in all ways a monetary phenomenon. When that book was published,

what was the reaction of the profession to its scholarship?

The profession on the whole appreciated its scholarship. As I remember, as best I can,

there were three different reviews in three different professional journals,

all of which were highly favorable, even though one of them at least was written by,

I think, two out of the three were written by Sriankanians.

And what was its impact in affecting the way the profession, at least in the short run,

looked at the role of money?

I find that a very hard question to answer. Obviously, many things were going on.

In the world it was going on, Bretton Woods was on.

The 60s was a pretty good prosperity on the whole during the 50s and the 60s.

It looked as if the Kangian interpretation was right. After all, during that period,

we had relatively prosperous countries, relatively stable prices, relatively low interest rates.

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