Once in great while, a book appears that both embodies and dramatically extends centuries of accumulated wisdom in a particular discipline, and, at the same time, radically challenges the intellectual and political consensus of the day. Human Action by Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) is such a book, and more: a comprehensive treatise on economic science that would lay the foundation for a massive shift in intellectual opinion that is still working itself out fifty years after publication.

Not even such milestones in the history of economic thought as Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Alfred Marshall's Principles, Karl Marx's Capital, or J.M. Keynes's General Theory can be said to have enduring significance and embody such persuasive power that today's students and scholars, as much as those who read it when it first appeared, are so fully drawn into the author's way of thinking.

For this reason, and others discussed below, this Scholar's Edition is the 1949 original and unchanged magnum opus that represents such a critical turning point in the history of ideas, reproduced (with a 1954 index produced by Vernelia Crawford) on the 50th anniversary of its initial appearance....

Human Action, building on and expanding its German predecessor, transformed Austrian economics, as it is understood today, into a predominantly American phenomenon with a distinctly Misesian imprint, and made possible the continuation of the Austrian School after the mid-century.

Thus the first edition assumes an importance than extends beyond the mere historical. It reveals the issues and concerns that Mises considered primary when releasing, at the height of his intellectual powers, the most complete and integrated statement of his career. In particular, making the unchanged first edition available again in this Scholar's Edition retrieves important passages that were later eliminated, and clarifies questions raised by unnecessary, and, in some cases, unfortunate additions and revisions made to later editions.

That the Scholar's Edition represents the fullest coming together of Mises's thought on method, theory, and policy, and is the book that sustained the Austrian tradition and the integrity of economic science after the socialist, Keynesian, Walrasian, Marshallian, and positivist conquests of economic thought, is reason enough to issue the original on its 50th anniversary, making it widely available for the first time in nearly four decades. A high place must be reserved in the history of economic thought, indeed, in the history of ideas, for Mises's masterwork. Even today, Human Action points the way to a brighter future for the science of economics and the practice of human liberty.