Welcome to the Online Library of Liberty

The OLL brings books and ideas together so they can converse with each other and with you. We’ve gathered together collections of texts from historical movements and about big ideas that have changed the world to make it easier to allow our texts to “talk” to each other.

Featured Titles

All’s Well that Ends Well

William Shakespeare (author)

All’s Well that Ends Well has defied categorization for centuries. The winning of a reluctant husband by an over-eager bride, and the subsequent bed-trick that secures their continued marriage are morally complicated in ways that…

The Babylonian Story of the Deluge and the Epic of Gilgamesh

Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge (author)

This book attempts to reconstruct two ancient Sumerian stories from photographs of the stone tablets on which they were originally written: one story concerns an ancient account of a deluge (or flood) which destroyed much of…

The American Republic: Primary Sources

Bruce Frohnen (editor)

The American Republic is an excellent textbook for classroom use which provides, in a single volume, critical, original documents revealing the character of American discourse on the nature and importance of local government, the…

Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, 3 vols.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury (author)

The Liberty Fund edition of Characteristicks presents the complete 1732 text of this classic work of philosophy and political theory. Also included are faithful reproductions of the stirring engravings that Shaftesbury created to…

The Reading Room

The OLL blog explores the fascinating, vital, and often surprising texts and people that fill our library. Come talk in our library!

A Tale of Two Antonios

The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night both end in double marriages, featuring the kind of comedy Disney would later seize upon: boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy and girl live happily ever after. But what of the other boy? What about boy who doesn’t get boy? This plot sounds more like the…
READ MORE

Liberty Matters

The OLL brings people together to debate and discuss important texts and big ideas about liberty.

Systemic Racism in Crime and Housing

A previous set of essays explored systemic racism as a potential cause of racial disparities in education and healthcare. This set focuses on similar disparities in housing and crime.
READ MORE

Socialism & Interventionism

The moving parts are men, that is, beings capable of learning, reflecting, reasoning, of making errors and of correcting them, and consequently of making the mechanism itself better or worse. They are capable of pain and pleasure,…

Frédéric Bastiat

Money & Banking

It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove, that wealth does not consist in money or in gold and silver, but in what money purchases.

Adam Smith

Economics

In the payment of the interest of the publick debt, it has been said, it is the right hand which pays the left. [52] The money does not go out of the country. It is only a part of the revenue of one set of the inhabitants which is…

Adam Smith

References and Guides

Mandeville: His Life and Work

Related Links:

Works by Bernard de Mandevile

Source: Editor's Introduction to Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees or Private Vices, Publick Benefits, 2 vols. With a Commentary Critical, Historical, and Explanatory by F.B. Kaye (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1988). Vol. 1.

INTRODUCTION

I. LIFE…

Learn More

Kalidasa: Life and Works

Source: Introduction to Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works, by Arthur W. Ryder (London: J.M. Dent, 1920).

INTRODUCTION . KALIDASA—HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS

Kalidasa probably lived in the fifth century of the Christian era. This date, approximate as it is, must yet be given with…

Learn More

Chronology: the Life and Times of William Penn

Related Links:

William Penn Collections: Political Theory Collections: Religious Toleration

Source: In The Political Writings of William Penn, introduction and annotations by Andrew R. Murphy (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002).

Learn More

Emerson on Anti-slavery

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a passionate opponent of slavery. Scattered throughout volume 11 of his collected works are essays and speeches on this topic. Here are a list of them:

Address On Emancipation In the British West Indies (August 1844). Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Works of Ralph Waldo…

Learn More

Shakespeare: Liberty and Responsibility

This is a Reading List based upon a Liberty Fund Conference on “Liberty and Sovereignty in Four Shakespearean Tragedies.”

Learn More

John Milton: Liberty in his Prose and Poetry

This is a Reading List based upon a Liberty Fund Conference on “Liberty in the Poetry and Prose of John Milton.”

Learn More

Forgotten Gems

Over the course of time some particularly noteworthy essays, chapters or sections of books are forgotten. This section is an attempt to revive these “forgotten gems”.

Learn More

An Introduction to the Major Writings of Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973)

The Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) wrote widely on matters such as highly technical works on monetary theory as well as journalistic pieces designed for a broader audience. Here is an annotated list of some of his major writings which have been…

Learn More

Socialism: A Study Guide and Reader

Introduction

This Study Guide examines the long-standing clash between Socialism and Marxism, and Classical Liberalism over the past 200 years or so. It provides a brief history of the tradition, some of its main criticisms of the free market, the classical liberalresponse to these criticisms,…

Learn More