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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 Reading Room

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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Liberty Matters

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

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Explore the OLL Collection: Images of Liberty and Power Cato and Republican Liberty

This images comes from the first edition (1713) of Joseph Addison's play "Cato. A Tragedy" which was so influential in the decades leading up to the American Revolution with its story of the courageous Cato the Younger defying Julius Caesar and choosing suicide over surrender. Liberty Fund has recently republished this classic work which can be found online here. The caption which accompan...

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Best of the OLL BOLL 31: Samuel anoints Saul the First King of Israel (c. 1,000 B.C.)

This is part of “The Best of the Online Library of Liberty” which is a collection of some of the most important material in the OLL. A thematic list with links to HTML versions of the texts is available here. This is part of First Samuel in the Old Testament which describes how Samuel appoints Saul the first king of Israel and warns the people how their new king will eventually tyrannize them.

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Explore the OLL Collection: Quotations About Liberty and Power Adam Ferguson on Love, Self-Interest, and Pleasure

In Part 1, Sect. 2, of An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), Adam Ferguson reflects on how love leads us to a sort of satisfaction which goes beyond what mere self-interested pleasures can give us:

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Liberty Matters: A Forum for the Discussion of Ideas About Liberty Understanding Jefferson: Slavery, Race, and the Declaration of Independence (July 2021)

Welcome to the July 2021 edition of Liberty Matters. This month we convene a panel of distinguished scholars to ask, "Who was Thomas Jefferson, and how did his views--particularly those on race, slavery, and freedom--inform his writings, including the Declaration of Independence?" Lead essayist Hans Eicholz, an historian and Senior Fellow at Liberty Fund, kicks things off in our lead essay by s...

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