Description
First edition of Money Versus Man by Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Frederick Soddy.
Small octavo, [i]-viii, 9-121, [7pp ads]. Red cloth, title in black on spine. No additional printings listed on copyright page. Solid text block, light wear to corners and top edge of spine, a near fine example. Previous ownership inscription to front endpaper. In the publisher’s near fine dust jacket, retail price 3s 6d on front flap, light rubbing to blue print along spine, touch of wear to corners, a vibrant example. Includes frontispiece portrait of Professor Soddy.
Frederick Soddy (1877-1956) was a prolific student of chemistry and radioactivity who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1921. His work alongside Sir Ernest Rutherford proved that radioactivity is due to the transmutation of elements, which later led to developments in nuclear reactions. From 1914 until his retirement, Soddy worked as a Professor of Chemistry at various English institutions. During this time, Soddy turned his attention to economic theories based in his understanding of physics. He connected the ideas of energy and the economy, arguing that the economy is not a perpetual motion machine, but was a system that would halt its generation of wealth. This work focuses on the development of money systems in the world, and how the exponential growth of industrial production did not align with the money systems of the time.
