Sam Tanenhaus Wrong On Buckley On Yale Economics

I have not even yet got to the founding of National Review in this no-doubt authoritative biography. But:

"With the assistance of [Lucille Cardin] Crain and her academic consultants Bill drew up his own list of dangerous books, most of them recently published. First on the list was Paul Samuelson's Economics: An Introductory Analysis. Published in 1948, it laid out the basics of Keynesian and neoclassical theories and in the next years became the most widely used textbook in the field. Its arguments contradicted the laissez-faire ideas to which many Yale donors and alumni subscribed. And, Buckley strongly suspected, those donors and alumni might not be aware that 'the net influence of Yale economics [is] thoroughly collectivistic.'" -- Sam Tanenhaus, 2025. Buckley: The Life and Revolution that Changed America. New York: Random House (204).

I suppose this could be a matter of judgement. I say that, as far as economics goes, Lorie Tarshis' textbook was first on the list. William F. Buckley was participating in an extra-academic intervention so successful that most economists are probably not even aware that Tarshis' textbook existed.