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Online Library of Liberty The OLL is a curated collection of scholarly works that engage with vital questions of liberty.

Spanning the centuries from Hammurabi to Hume, and collecting material on topics from art and economics to law and political theory, the OLL provides you with a rich variety of texts to explore and consider.

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

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

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Liberty Matters: A Forum for the Discussion of Ideas About Liberty John Locke on Commercial Society (September 2021)

Welcome to our September 2021 edition of Liberty Matters. This month Professor Bas van der Vossen of Chapman University has written an essay on John Locke’s often underappreciated economic thought. Professor van der Vossen notes that Locke’s impact on the political thought of liberal societies cannot be overstated, but this often means that few scholars look at Locke’s thoughts on labor, proper...

Explore the OLL Collection: Images of Liberty and Power Thomas Clarkson and the Abolition of the Slave Trade

One of the great movements for liberty was the abolitionist movement in the late 18th and 19th centuries. It was led by figures like the Quaker Thomas Clarkson who successfully agitated for the abolition of the slave trade in Britain. He wrote histories and other works which exposed the cruelty and inhumanity of slavery. In his History of the Abolition of the Slave-trade he used illustrations v...

Explore the OLL Collection: Quotations About Liberty and Power Shaftesbury on the need for liberty to promote the liberal arts (1712)

Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713) believed that liberty played the key role in fostering the development of the liberal arts and sciences and that the government should leave things alone and not disturb the “Genius of Liberty”: