Frank Fetter of Princeton University was one of the great American Austrians, and perhaps the most lucid defender of the "pure time preference" theory of interest in the history of economic ideas. Rothbard learned from him, and then collected his best work into a single volume that works as a reader on the Austrian theory of capital and interest. If we are tempted to think of the Austrian perspective as a tiny minority within the profession, this volume shows that the situation has always been more complex. Fetter was not an Austrian from beginning to end, but on this topic, no one wrote with more conviction and explanatory power. The English is beautiful, and logic is rigorous. With this reprint, Fetter again has a voice.

Knut Wicksell was an important thinker of the second-generation marginalist school, and here is his detailed commentary on and elaboration of the capital theory of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. It was first published in 1893, but did not appear in English until 1954. But its appearance filled a gap in the history of economic ideas. He further defends the relationship between the natural rate of interest and the return on capital. He sides strongly with the Mengerian school of marginalists against the Jevons and Walrasian branch. This book is essential for any student of Austrian capital theory. His rigor and attention to detail is impressive by any standard. This softcover book is 184 pages with index, and a foreword by G.L.S. Shackle (who mistakenly suggests that Wicksell was a proto-Keynesian).

Von Boehm-Bawerk is one of the leading economists of the so-called Austrian school. With Karl Menger and others, he has contributed to the development of a theory of value which has received wide acceptance, and has been the cause of still wider discussion, in the economic world. This theory, as elaborated by Boehm von Bawerk, is based largely upon psychological principles. Its chief feature consists in a searching analysis of ‘subjective value.’ In his “Capital and Interest”, the author makes a brilliant and original study of these two subjects. “The Positive Theory of Capital” is the successor to the work mentioned above.