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Henry Stuart Hazlitt (; November 28, 1894 – July 9, 1993) was an American journalist who wrote about business and economics for such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, The American Mercury, Newsweek, and The New York Times. Early life and education Henry Hazlitt was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He was a collateral descendant of the British essayist William Hazlitt, but grew up in relative poverty, his father having died when Hazlitt was an infant. His early heroes were Herbert Spencer and William James, and his first ambition was for an academic career in psychology and philosophy. He attended New York's City College, but left after only a short time to support his twice-widowed mother. As he later wrote, his short time at college "had a greater influence than may at first sight be supposed, not as much from the knowledge gained there, as from the increased consciousness of the knowledge which I still had to gain and the consequent ambition to attain it." Career Early accomplishments Hazlitt started his career at The Wall Street Journal as secretary to the managing editor when he was still a teenager, and his interest in the field of economics began while working there. His studies led him to The Common Sense of Political Economy by Philip Wicksteed which, he later said, was his first "tremendous influence" in the subject. Hazlitt published his first book, Thinking as a Science at age 21. He wrote the book because he realized—through his intense process of self-education—that it was more important to think clearly than to merely absorb information. As he explains in its opening pages:Every man knows there are evils in the world which need setting right. Every man has pretty definite ideas as to what these evils are. But to most men one in particular stands out vividly. To some, in fact, this stands out with such startling vividness that they lose sight of other evils, or look upon them as the natural consequences of their own particular evil-in-chief. To the Socialist this evil is the capitalistic system; to the prohibitionist it is intemperance; to the feminist it is the subjection of women; to the clergyman it is the decline of religion; to Andrew Carnegie it is war; to the staunch Republican it is the Democratic Party, and so on, ad infinitum. I, too, have a pet little evil, to which in more passionate moments I am apt to attribute all the others. This evil is the neglect of thinking. And when I say thinking I mean real thinking, independent thinking, hard thinking. Military service During World War I, he served in the Army Air Service. While residing in Brooklyn, he enlisted in New York City on February 11, 1918, and served with the Aviation Section of the Signal Enlisted Reserve Corps until July 9, 1918. He was then in Princeton, New Jersey, at the US School of Military Aeronautics until October 22, when he was sent to AS Camp Dick in Dallas, Texas, for a few weeks until November 7, and he was honorably discharged from service with the rank of private first class on December 12, 1918. He returned to New York, residing at Washington Square Park for many years. Editor and author In the early 1920s, he was financial editor of The New York Evening Mail, and during this period, Hazlitt reported his understanding of economics was further refined by frequent discussions with former Harvard economics professor Benjamin Anderson, who was then working for Chase National Bank in Manhattan. Later, when the publisher W. W. Norton suggested he write an official biography of their author Bertrand Russell, Hazlitt spent "a good deal of time," as he described it, with the famous philosopher. Lord Russell "so admired the young journalist's talent" that he had agreed with Norton's proposal, but the project ended after nearly two years of work when Russell declared his intention to write it on his own as an autobiography instead. During the interwar decades, a vibrant period in the history of American literature, Hazlitt served as literary editor of The New York Sun (1925–1929), and as literary editor of the left-leaning journal, The Nation (1930–1933). In connection with his work for The Nation, Hazlitt also edited A Practical Program for America (1932), a compilation of Great Depression policy considerations. After a series of public debates with socialist Louis Fischer, Hazlitt and The Nation parted ways. In 1933, Hazlitt published The Anatomy of Criticism, an extended "trialogue" examining the nature of literary criticism and appreciation, regarded by some to be an early refutation of literary deconstruction. In the same year, he became H. L. Mencken's chosen successor as editor of the literary magazine, The American Mercury, which Mencken had founded with George Jean Nathan, as a result of which appointment Vanity Fair included Hazlitt among those hailed in its regular "Hall of Fame" photo feature. Due to increasing differences with the publisher, Alfred A. Knopf Sr., he served in that role for only a brief time, but Mencken wrote that Hazlitt was the "only competent critic of the arts that I have heard of who was at the same time a competent economist, of practical as well as theoretical training," adding that he "is one of the few economists in human history who could really write." From 1934 to 1946, Hazlitt was the principal editorial writer on finance and economics for The New York Times, writing both a signed weekly column and most of the unsigned editorials on economics, producing a considerable volume of work. Following World War II, he came into conflict with Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times, over the newly established Bretton Woods system which created the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Hazlitt opposed the Bretton Woods agreement, primarily fearing the risk of inflation. After agreeing not to write on the topic, he looked for another venue for his work, deciding on Newsweek magazine, for which he wrote a signed column, "Business Tides", from 1946 to 1966. According to Hazlitt, the greatest influence on his writing in economics was the work of Ludwig von Mises, and he is credited with introducing the ideas of the Austrian School of economics to the English-speaking layman. In 1938, for example, he reviewed the recently published English translation of Mises's influential treatise Socialism for The New York Times, declaring it "a classic" and "the most devastating analysis of socialism yet penned." After the Jewish economist's emigration to the United States from National Socialist-dominated Europe in 1940, Hazlitt arranged for Mises to contribute editorials to The New York Times, and helped to secure for Mises a teaching position at New York University. Along with the efforts of his friends, Max Eastman and John Chamberlain, Hazlitt also helped introduce F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom to the American reading public. His 1944 review in The New York Times cau.... Discover the Henry Hazlitt popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Henry Hazlitt books.