About 15 years ago, I purchased a hardcover copy of Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, published in 1946. Inside the cover was the following inscription:

About 15 years ago, I purchased a hardcover copy of Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, published in 1946. Inside the cover was the following inscription: Ambassador Douglas (in pencil) Geyelin, 4511 Cath. Ave. N.W. (in pen) Intrigued, I started researching the names and dates. Here's what I pieced together. In 1947, Philip L. Geyelin, then working at the Wall Street Journal, gave the book as a gift to Lewis Williams Douglas, who had recently become the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom. (Geyelin had joined the Journal in 1946 and probably would have known the book's author, Henry Hazlitt, who was also at the Journal at that time.) My hunch is that the book was given to influence Douglas's thinking about economic policies that should be adopted to restore the UK and Europe after World War II. As it turned out, Douglas was instrumental to the passage and implementation of the Marshall Plan.