Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) was a Jewish-Austrian philosopher and economist. As befits the title of a “philosopher,” Mises did for economics some of its deepest foundational work, so deep in fact that my conviction is that using his foundational work is not only the best way to build economics but also the best way to build linguistics.

Fearing that the Germans under Adolf Hitler were going to take over Austria, Mises fled his native Austria in 1934. He moved to Switzerland, where he taught at a university from 1934 to 1940, and then he moved to America, where he spent the rest of his life. He wrote mostly in German before his move to America and mostly in English afterwards. For example, he published his German-language magnum opus Nationalökonomie in 1940—that was his last major work in German—and then he published its English-language counterpart, which he titled Human Action (PDF), in 1949.