The Middle Way. A Study Of The Problem Of Economic And Social Progress In A Free And Democratic Society. Macmillan, Harold.

First edition, first impression, of one of the most influential works by any British prime minister, developing a conservative system of interventionist and welfarist economic policy which provided an alternative both to the radical solutions of fascism and communism and also to the laissez-faire policy of the past. Macmillan's approach characterized post-war Conservative Party politics until the Thatcherite challenge in the 1970s. "Whereas Keynes's General Theory aimed at a non-technical statement of a theoretical critique, The Middle Way tried to offer a reasoned programme of action, Keynesian in character - 'a kind of popular version of some of Keynes's ideas' (Winds of Change, 490) - but with a much stronger emphasis on industrial policy than Keynes had offered. It was intended to offer a middle way politically as well as in terms of policy. It was much the most cogent work on the state and the economy published by any of those who became prime ministers in the twentieth century. It left Macmillan still uncertain in his intellectual and political relationship to his party, while, ironically, staking out much of what was to be the Tory party's position after 1945. In the late 1940s the book's case against socialism and in favour of a managed capitalism seemed to many Tories self-evidently sensible, though in 1938 many saw it as dangerously interventionist" (ODNB). Macmillan's proposals remain of enduring influence in the Conservative Party, visible in the various and persistent calls for "One Nation" or "compassionate" conservatism. Octavo. Original brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. Neat ink notation "320/5" to rear pastedown and faintly to spine panel and rear flap. Jacket a little rubbed with a few short closed tears and tiny chips at extremities: a fine copy in very good jacket.