Books Published by Liberty Fund

About this Collection

The following titles are works published by Liberty Fund which are also available online. A full list of titles published by Liberty Fund can be found in our online catalog.

Key People

Titles & Essays

A Concise History of the Common Law

Theodore Frank Thomas Plucknett (author)

Plucknett’s work provides a common-law understanding of individual rights, not in theory only, but protected through the confusing and messy evolution of courts, and their administration as they struggled to resolve real problems.…

An Account of Denmark, With Francogallia and Some Considerations for the Promoting of Agriculture and Employing the Poor

Robert Molesworth (author)

Molesworth’s An Account of Denmark was one of the canonical works of 18th century Whiggism. It is a detailed description of how tyranny and corruption worked, the institutions that made this possible, and the ideas that supported it.…

The American Commonwealth, 2 vols.

Viscount James Bryce (author)

In Democracy in America (1835) the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville interpreted American society through the lens of democratic political theory. A half-century later the Scotsman James Bryce examined “the institutions and the people…

The American Commonwealth, vol. 1

Viscount James Bryce (author)

James Bryce examined “the institutions and the people of America as they are.” in The American Commonwealth, first published in London in three volumes in 1888. This edition’s expanded appendix includes Bryce’s 1887 essay, “The…

The American Commonwealth, vol. 2

Viscount James Bryce (author)

James Bryce examined “the institutions and the people of America as they are.” in The American Commonwealth, first published in London in three volumes in 1888. This edition’s expanded appendix includes Bryce’s 1887 essay, “The…

The American Nation: Primary Sources

Bruce Frohnen (editor)

This volume is a continuation of Frohnen’s earlier collection of primary sources The American Republic. It contains material from the Civil War to the outbreak of World War Two in the Pacific.

American Political Writing During the Founding Era: 1760-1805, 2 vols.

Charles S. Hyneman (editor)

These volumes provide a selection of seventy-six essays, pamphlets, speeches, and letters to newspapers written between 1760 and 1805 by American political and religious leaders. Many are obscure pieces, but all illuminate the…

American Political Writing During the Founding Era: 1760-1805, vol. 1

Charles S. Hyneman (editor)

These volumes provide a selection of seventy-six essays, pamphlets, speeches, and letters to newspapers written between 1760 and 1805 by American political and religious leaders. Many are obscure pieces, but all illuminate the…

American Political Writing During the Founding Era: 1760-1805, vol. 2

Charles S. Hyneman (editor)

These volumes provide a selection of seventy-six essays, pamphlets, speeches, and letters to newspapers written between 1760 and 1805 by American political and religious leaders. Many are obscure pieces , but all illuminate the…

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…

America’s Second Crusade

William Henry Chamberlin (author)

Chamberlin wrote this volume on the role of the United States in World War II just a few years after the surrender of the Axis forces in 1945. This reprint is designed to give history students and scholars a more immediate “window”…

The Anti-capitalistic Mentality

Ludwig von Mises (author)

In The Anti-capitalistic Mentality, Ludwig von Mises explains the causes of the irrational fear and hatred many intellectuals and others feel for capitalism. Written during the heyday of twentieth-century socialism, this work…

“Are Economists Basically Immoral?” and Other Essays on Economics, Ethics, and Religion

Paul Heyne (author)

Heyne’s writings are unique in that he takes the critics of the free market order seriously and addresses their arguments directly, showing how they are defective in their understanding of economics and in their ethical and…

Bureaucracy

Ludwig von Mises (author)

Originally published by Yale University Press in 1944, Bureaucracy is a classic fundamental examination of the nature of bureaucracies and free markets in juxtaposition to various political systems.

Can Capitalism Survive?

Benjamin A. Rogge (author)

The nineteen essays in this volume explore the philosophy of freedom, the nature of economics, the business system, labor markets, money and inflation, the problems of cities, education, and what must be done to ensure the survival…

Cato: A Tragedy and Selected Essays

Joseph Addison (author)

First produced in 1713, Cato, A Tragedy inspired generations toward a pursuit of liberty. Liberty Fund’s new edition of Cato: A Tragedy, and Selected Essays brings together Addison’s dramatic masterpiece along with a selection of his…

Cato’s Letters, vol. 1 November 5, 1720 to June 17, 1721 (LF ed.)

Thomas Gordon (author)

Volume 1 of a four volumes in 2 set. Almost a generation before Washington, Henry, and Jefferson were even born, two Englishmen, concealing their identities with the honored ancient name of Cato, wrote newspaper articles condemning…

Cato’s Letters, vol. 2 June 24, 1721 to March 3, 1722 (LF ed.)

Thomas Gordon (author)

Volume 2 of a four volumes in 2 set. Almost a generation before Washington, Henry, and Jefferson were even born, two Englishmen, concealing their identities with the honored ancient name of Cato, wrote newspaper articles condemning…

Cato’s Letters, vol. 3 March 10, 1722 to December 1, 1722 (LF ed.)

Thomas Gordon (author)

Volume 3 of a four volumes in 2 set. Almost a generation before Washington, Henry, and Jefferson were even born, two Englishmen, concealing their identities with the honored ancient name of Cato, wrote newspaper articles condemning…

Cato’s Letters, vol. 4 December 8, 1722 to December 7, 1723 (LF ed.)

Thomas Gordon (author)

Volume 4 of a four volumes in 2 set. Almost a generation before Washington, Henry, and Jefferson were even born, two Englishmen, concealing their identities with the honored ancient name of Cato, wrote newspaper articles condemning…

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…

Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, vol. 1

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…

Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, vol. 2

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…

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

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 Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume I - Autobiography and Literary Essays

John Stuart Mill (author)

Vol. 1 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s autobiography and some literary essays mostly from the 1830s.

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume II - The Principles of Political Economy I

John Stuart Mill (author)

Vol. 2 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Part 1 of Mill’s Principles of Political Economy.

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume III - Principles of Political Economy Part II

John Stuart Mill (author)

Vol. 3 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Part 2 of Mill’s Principles of Political Economy.

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume IV - Essays on Economics and Society Part I

John Stuart Mill (author)

Vol. 4 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains a number of Mill’s essays on economic topics, including the collection Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy.

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume V - Essays on Economics and Society Part II

John Stuart Mill (author)

Vol. 5 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains a number of Mill’s essays on economic topics, including the Chapters on Socialism.

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume VII - A System of Logic Part I

John Stuart Mill (author)

Vol. 7 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Part 1 of Mill’s System of Logic. It contains chapters on reasoning, induction, the laws of nature, causation, and disbelief.

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume VIII - A System of Logic Part II

John Stuart Mill (author)

Vol. 8 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Part 2 of Mill’s System of Logic. It contains chapters on fallacies, methodology of the social sciences, and the science of history.

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume X - Essays on Ethics, Religion, and Society

John Stuart Mill (author)

Vol. 10 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains a number of Mill’s essays on religion and moral philosophy as well as his works on Utilitarianism and Auguste Comte.

The Collected Works of Arthur Seldon

Arthur Seldon (author)

The Collected Works of Arthur Seldon spans 65 years of Seldon’s influential thought and includes all his pivotal works that helped to shape current economic thought. His arguments are as compelling and relevant today as they were…

The Collected Works of Arthur Seldon, vol. 1 - The Virtues of Capitalism

Arthur Seldon (author)

The Virtues of Capitalism, lays the foundation of Seldon’s views and theories of capitalism and its alternatives. The first part, Corrigible Capitalism; Incorrigible Socialism, was first published in 1980. It explains why, Seldon…

The Collected Works of Arthur Seldon, vol. 4

Arthur Seldon (author)

This is the fourth volume in Liberty Fund’s The Collected Works of Arthur Seldon. It brings together six of Seldon’s essays that discuss his alternative proposals for paying for “public” services rather than through coercive…

The Collected Works of Arthur Seldon, vol. 5 - Government Failure and Over-Government

Arthur Seldon (author)

In the fifth volume of The Collected Works of Arthur Seldon, Arthur Seldon uses public choice economics research to support his theory of over-government. The term “over-government” was coined by Seldon and is defined as the failure…

The Collected Works of Arthur Seldon, vol. 6

Arthur Seldon (author)

Volume 6 of The Collected Works of Arthur Seldon examines the failure of state-supported welfare programs to benefit the people most in need of help. The eight articles and one book in this volume encompass almost forty years of…

The Collected Works of Arthur Seldon, vol. 7 - The IEA, the LSE, and the Influence of Ideas

Arthur Seldon (author)

Volume 7 of The Collected Works of Arthur Seldon includes six works that discuss the role of the Institute of Economic Affairs, where Seldon spent most of his working life. For copyright reasons, only “The Making of the Institute: A…

The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan in 20 vols.

James M. Buchanan (author)

The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan is a twenty-volume series published by Liberty Fund that includes ten monographs and all of the important journal articles, papers, and essays that Buchanan has produced in a distinguished…

The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan. Vol. 2 Public Principles of Public Debt

James M. Buchanan (author)

Vol. 2 of The Collected Works. One of James M. Buchanan’s most important and influential books which is based on the then (1958) radical idea that the burden of debt is not borne by the current generation, but is shouldered in large…

The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy

James M. Buchanan (author)

Vol. 3 of The Collected Works. The Calculus of Consent, is a ground-breaking economic classic written by two of the world’s preeminent economists - Gordon Tullock and Nobel Laureate James M. Buchanan. This book is a unique blend of…

The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Vol. 4. Public Finance in Democratic Process

James M. Buchanan (author)

Vol. 4 of The Collected Works. Public Finance in Democratic Process outlines the dynamics of individual choice as it is displayed in the process of public finance. The underlying principles of this seminal work are: an analysis of…

The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Vol. 5. The Demand and Supply of Public Goods

James M. Buchanan (author)

Vol. 5 of The Collected Works. Originally given as a series of lectures at Cambridge University in 1961 and 1962, in The Demand and Supply of Public Goods Buchanan develops a theory of public-goods in which he compares market…

Cost and Choice: An Inquiry in Economic Theory, Vol. 6 of the Collected Works

James M. Buchanan (author)

Vol. 6 of The Collected Works. A short work in which Buchanan develops his ideas on opportunity cost. He takes an individualist and subjectivist perspective and attempts to integrate this into the orthodox classical and neoclassical…

The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, vol. 7 (The Limits of Liberty)

James M. Buchanan (author)

Vol. 7 of The Collected Works. The Limits of Liberty made James Buchanan’s name more widely known than ever before among political philosophers and theorists and established Buchanan, along with John Rawls and Robert Nozick, as one…

Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes

James M. Buchanan (author)

Vol. 8 of The Collected Works. Democracy in Deficit is one of the early comprehensive attempts to apply the basic principles of public-choice analysis to macroeconomic theory and policy. The book serves to bolster Buchanan’s central…

The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Vol. 9 (The Power to Tax)

Geoffrey Brennan (author)

Vol. 9 of The Collected Works. Originally published in 1980, The Power to Tax was a much-needed answer to the tax revolts sweeping across the United States. The public-choice approach to taxation which Buchanan had earlier elaborated…

The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Vol. 10 (The Reason of Rules)

James M. Buchanan (author)

Vol. 10 of The Collected Works. In his foreword, Robert D. Tollison identifies the main objective of Geoffrey Brennan and James M. Buchanan’s The Reason of Rules: ” . . a book-length attempt to focus the energies of economists and…

Collected Works of James Wilson, 2 vols.

James Wilson (author)

This two-volume set brings together a collection of writings and speeches of James Wilson, one of only six signers of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and one of the most influential members of the federal…

Collected Works of James Wilson, vol. 1

James Wilson (author)

This two-volume set brings together a collection of writings and speeches of James Wilson, one of only six signers of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and one of the most influential members of the federal…

Collected Works of James Wilson, vol. 2

James Wilson (author)

This two-volume set brings together a collection of writings and speeches of James Wilson, one of only six signers of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and one of the most influential members of the federal…

Colonial Origins of the American Constitution: A Documentary History

Donald S. Lutz (editor)

A collection of eighty documents which demonstrate how local government in colonial America was the seedbed of American constitutionalism. Most of these documents, commencing with the Agreement of the Settlers at Exeter in New…

Commentary on Filangieri’s Work

Benjamin Constant (author)

The Commentary is Constant’s most extensive treatment of economic matters. It is a response to a multi-volume work by the Italian jurist Gaetano Filangiero, The Science of Legislation (1780-88). Constant defends limited government…

Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty

Hugo Grotius (author)

Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty was written in justification of the capture of the Portuguese merchantman Santa Catarina in the Strait of Singapore in February 1603. The Liberty Fund edition is based on the one prepared by…

Commerce and Government Considered in their Mutual Relationship

Étienne Bonnot, Abbé de Condillac (author)

This text covers such topics as value, money, agriculture, domestic and foreign trade, war, labor, interest rates, luxuries, and the various government policies that affect these subjects.The theme that unites these disparate…

Commerce, Culture, and Liberty: Readings on Capitalism Before Adam Smith

Henry C. Clark (editor)

In this Liberty Fund book the editor has compiled some of the more important writings on economics before the appearance of Smith’s Wealth of Nations in 1776. It is particularly strong on the French contribution. Not all the pieces…

Considerations on the Principal Events of the French Revolution (LF ed.)

Germaine de Staël (author)

Considerations is considered de Staël’s magnum opus and sheds renewed light on the familiar figures and events of the Revolution, among them, the financier and statesman Jacques Necker, her father.

The Constitution of England; Or, an Account of the English Government

Jean Louis De Lolme (author)

The Constitution of England is one of the most distinguished eighteenth-century treatises on English political liberty. Like Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws (1748) and Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769), De…

Constitutionalism and the Separation of Powers

M.J.C. Vile (author)

Arguably no political principle has been more central than the separation of powers to the evolution of constitutional governance in Western democracies. M. J. C. Vile traces the history of the doctrine from its rise during the…

Constitutionalism: Ancient and Modern

Charles Howard McIlwain (author)

Constitutionalism: Ancient and Modern explores the very roots of liberty by examining the development of modern constitutionalism from its ancient and medieval origins. Derived from a series of lectures delivered by Charles Howard…

The Crisis: A British Defense of American Rights, 1775–1776

Neil L. York (editor)

The Crisis was a London weekly published between January 1775 and October 1776. It was the longest-running weekly pamphlet series printed in the British Atlantic world during those years, and it used unusually bold, pithy language.…

The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century

Hugh Trevor-Roper (author)

The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century collects nine essays by Trevor-Roper on the themes of religion, the Reformation, and social change. As Trevor-Roper explains in his preface, “the crisis in government, society, and ideas which…

The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat, in 6 Vols.

Frédéric Bastiat (author)

A 6 vol. collection of the works of the 19th century French political economist Frédéric Bastiat. More than half of the material has never been translated into English before. The texts are accompanied by extensive glossaries, maps,…

The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat. Vol. 1: The Man and the Statesman: The Correspondence and Articles on Politics

Frédéric Bastiat (author)

Vol. 1 of a 6 vol. collection of the works of the 19th century French political economist Frédéric Bastiat. This volume contains 209 letters and a selection of his articles on politics. A detailed glossary contains information about…

The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat. Vol. 2: The Law, The State, and Other Political Writings, 1843-1850

Frédéric Bastiat (author)

Volume 2 of a collection of the works of the 19th century French political economist Frédéric Bastiat. This volume contains 19 essays on political theory, including “The State,” “The Law,” and “Property and Plunder.” A detailed…

The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat. Vol. 3: Economic Sophisms and “What is Seen and What is Not Seen”

Frédéric Bastiat (author)

Volume 3 of a 6 volume collection of the works of the 19th century French political economist Frédéric Bastiat. This volume contains the complete collection of Economic Sophisms, a third of which have never been translated before; as…

David Hume: Prophet of the Counter-revolution

Laurence L. Bongie (author)

The bulk of Bongie’s work consists of the writings of French readers of Hume who were confronted, first, by the ideology of human perfection and, finally, by the actual terrors of the French Revolution. These vitally important…

Democracy and Liberty, (LF ed.)

William Edward Hartpole Lecky (author)

A two volume work in which Lecky explores how the growing tendency towards untrammeled democracy might undermine individual liberty in the coming century.

Democracy and Liberty, vol. 1 (LF ed.)

William Edward Hartpole Lecky (author)

Vol. 1 of a two volume work in which Lecky explores how the growing tendency towards untrammeled democracy might undermine individual liberty in the coming century.

Democracy and Liberty, vol. 2 (LF ed.)

William Edward Hartpole Lecky (author)

Vol. 2 of a two volume work in which Lecky explores how the growing tendency towards untrammeled democracy might undermine individual liberty in the coming century.

Democracy in America. English Edition. 2 vols.

Alexis de Tocqueville (author)

A two volume English only version of Liberty Fund’s 4 volume bi-lingual critical edition. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville and his friend Gustave de Beaumont visited the United States. From Tocqueville’s copious notes of what he had…

Democracy in America. English Edition. Vol. 1

Alexis de Tocqueville (author)

Volume 1 of a two volume English only version of Liberty Fund’s 4 volume bi-lingual critical edition. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville and his friend Gustave de Beaumont visited the United States. From Tocqueville’s copious notes of…

Democracy in America. English Edition. Vol. 2.

Alexis de Tocqueville (author)

Volume 2 of a two volume English only version of Liberty Fund’s 4 volume bi-lingual critical edition. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville and his friend Gustave de Beaumont visited the United States. From Tocqueville’s copious notes of…

Democracy in America: Historical-Critical Edition, vol. 1

Alexis de Tocqueville (author)

A new 4 volume edition of Tocqueville’s classic text De la Démocratie en Amérique. The original was published in two large volumes, the first in 1835, the second in 1840. The first volume focused primarily on political society; the…

Democracy in America: Historical-Critical Edition, vol. 2

Alexis de Tocqueville (author)

A new 4 volume edition of Tocqueville’s classic text De la Démocratie en Amérique. The original was published in two large volumes, the first in 1835, the second in 1840. The first volume focused primarily on political society; the…

Democracy in America: Historical-Critical Edition, vol. 3

Alexis de Tocqueville (author)

A new 4 volume edition of Tocqueville’s classic text De la Démocratie en Amérique. The original was published in two large volumes, the first in 1835, the second in 1840. The first volume focused primarily on political society; the…

Democracy in America: Historical-Critical Edition, vol. 4

Alexis de Tocqueville (author)

A new 4 volume edition of Tocqueville’s classic text De la Démocratie en Amérique. The original was published in two large volumes, the first in 1835, the second in 1840. The first volume focused primarily on political society; the…

Democratick Editorials: Essays in Jacksonian Political Economy

William Leggett (author)

This volume is a collection of Leggett’s editorials and newspaper articles written during the 1830s in Jacksonian America. He is a consistent advocate of laissez-faire economic policy and limited government.

Discourses Concerning Government

Algernon Sidney (author)

Written in response to Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha (1680), the Discourses Concerning Government is a classic defense of republicanism and popular government. Sidney rejected Filmer’s theories of royal absolutism and divine right…

The Divine Feudal Law: Or, Covenants with Mankind, Represented

Samuel von Pufendorf (author)

The Divine Feudal Law sets forth Pufendorf’s basis for the reunion of the Lutheran and Calvinist confessions. This attempt to seek a “conciliation” between the confessions complements the concept of toleration discussed in Of the…

Early Economic Thought in Spain, 1177-1740

Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson (author)

In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, clerics gave lectures at the University of Salamanca on such topics as the varying purchasing power of money, the morality of money, and how price is determined. Marjorie…

Economic Freedom and Interventionism

Ludwig von Mises (author)

Economic Freedom and Interventionism is a primer of the thought of Ludwig von Mises and an anthology of his writings. This volume contains forty-seven articles edited by Mises scholar Bettina Bien Greaves. Among them are Mises’s…

Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow

Ludwig von Mises (author)

Economic Policy contains six lectures Ludwig von Mises delivered in 1959 for the Centro de Estudios sobre la Libertad in Argentina. This volume serves as an excellent introduction to what Mises sees as the simple truths of history in…

An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature

Nathaniel Culverwell (author)

An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature is a concerted effort to find a middle way between the two extremes that dominated the religious dispute of the English civil war in the seventeenth century. Nathaniel…

Elements of Criticism, 2 vols.

Henry Home, Lord Kames (author)

A two volume work on the “science of criticism” by one of the leading figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. Kames argues that criticism of art and literature is a rational science as well as a matter of taste. In volume 1 he…

Elements of Criticism, vol. 1

Henry Home, Lord Kames (author)

Volume 1 of a two volume work on the “science of criticism” by one of the leading figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. Kames argues that criticism of art and literature is a rational science as well as a matter of taste. In volume…

Elements of Criticism, vol. 2

Henry Home, Lord Kames (author)

Volume 2 of a two volume work on the “science of criticism” by one of the leading figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. Kames argues that criticism of art and literature is a rational science as well as a matter of taste. In volume…

The Elements of Moral Philosophy

David Fordyce (author)

Fordyce’s Elements of Moral Philosophy was a notable contribution to the curriculum in moral philosophy and was one of the most widely circulated texts in moral philosophy in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Empire and Nation: Letters from a Farmer

John Dickinson (author)

Two sets of letters that have been described as “the wellsprings of nearly all ensuing debate on the limits of governmental power in the United States” are collected in this volume. They include Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania

Encyclopedic Liberty: Political Articles in the Dictionary of Diderot and D’Alembert

Denis Diderot (author)

This anthology unites the most significant political writing from the compendium known as The Encyclopedia. It includes eighty-one of the most original, controversial and representative articles on political ideas, practices, and…

Epistemological Problems of Economics (1933, 2013)

Ludwig von Mises (author)

Epistemological Problems of Economics presents Ludwig von Mises’s views on the logical and epistemological features of social interpretation as well as his argument that the Austrian theory of value is the core element of a general…

Essay on the Nature of Trade in General (LF ed.)

Richard Cantillon (author)

The Liberty Fund edition is a modernized translation of Richard Cantillon’s Essai sur la nature du commerce en général (1755) with a new introduction by Antoin E. Murphy. Cantillon outlined an extraordinary model-building approach…

An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections (1742, 2002)

Francis Hutcheson (author)

The first half of the work presents a rich moral psychology built on a theory of the passions and an account of motivation deepening and augmenting the doctrine of moral sense developed in the Inquiry. The second half of the work is…

Essays Moral, Political, Literary (LF ed.)

David Hume (author)

This edition of Hume’s much neglected philosophical essays contains the thirty-nine essays included in Essays, Moral, and Literary, that made up Volume I of the 1777 posthumous Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. It also…

Essays on Church, State, and Politics

Christian Thomasius (author)

The essays selected here for translation derive largely from Thomasius’s work on Staatskirchenrecht, or the political jurisprudence of church law. These works, originating as disputations, theses, and pamphlets, were direct…

Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion

Henry Home, Lord Kames (author)

The Essays is commonly considered Kames’s most important philosophical work. In the first part, he sets forth the principles and foundations of morality and justice, attacking Hume’s moral skepticism and addressing the controversial…

Excellencie of a Free-State

Marchamont Nedham (author)

First published in 1656, The Excellencie of a Free-State addressed a dilemma in English politics, namely, what kind of government should the Commonwealth adopt? One possibility was to revert to the ancient constitution and create a…

Exploring the Bounds of Liberty: Political Writings of Colonial British America from the Glorious Revolution to the American Revolution

Jack P. Greene (editor)

Exploring the Bounds of Liberty is a 3 vol. collection which presents a rich and extensive selection of the political literature produced in and about colonial British America during the century before the American Revolution. Most…

Exploring the Bounds of Liberty: Political Writings of Colonial British America from the Glorious Revolution to the American Revolution. Vol. 1 (1687-1732)

Jack P. Greene (editor)

Exploring the Bounds of Liberty is a 3 vol. collection which presents a rich and extensive selection of the political literature produced in and about colonial British America during the century before the American Revolution…

Exploring the Bounds of Liberty: Political Writings of Colonial British America from the Glorious Revolution to the American Revolution. Vol. 2 (1734-1755)

Jack P. Greene (editor)

Exploring the Bounds of Liberty is a 3 vol. collection which presents a rich and extensive selection of the political literature produced in and about colonial British America during the century before the American Revolution…

Exploring the Bounds of Liberty: Political Writings of Colonial British America from the Glorious Revolution to the American Revolution. Vol. 3 (1755-1774)

Jack P. Greene (editor)

Exploring the Bounds of Liberty is a 3 vol. collection which presents a rich and extensive selection of the political literature produced in and about colonial British America during the century before the American Revolution…

The Fable of the Bees or Private Vices, Publick Benefits, 2 vols.

Bernard Mandeville (author)

Mandeville is a witty satirist who used a poem to make the profound economic point that “private vices” (or self-interest) lead to “publick benefits” (such as orderly social structures like law, language, and markets).

The Fable of the Bees or Private Vices, Publick Benefits, Vol. 1

Bernard Mandeville (author)

Mandeville is a witty satirist who used a poem to make the profound economic point that “private vices” (or self-interest) lead to “publick benefits” (such as orderly social structures like law, language, and markets).

The Fable of the Bees or Private Vices, Publick Benefits, Vol. 2

Bernard Mandeville (author)

Mandeville is a witty satirist who used a poem to make the profound economic point that “private vices” (or self-interest) lead to “publick benefits” (such as orderly social structures like law, language, and markets).

The Federalist (Gideon ed.)

Alexander Hamilton (author)

The Federalist, by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, constitutes a text central to the American political tradition. Published in newspapers in 1787 and 1788 to explain and promote ratification of the proposed…

The Free Sea (Hakluyt trans.)

Hugo Grotius (author)

Grotius’s influential argument in favor of freedom of navigation, trade, and fishing in Richard Hakluyt’s translation. The book also contains William Welwod’s critque and Grotius’s reply to Welwod.

Freedom and the Law (LF ed.)

Bruno Leoni (author)

The greatest obstacle to rule of law in our time, contends Bruno Leoni, is the problem of overlegislation. In modern democratic societies, legislative bodies are increasingly usurping functions that were and should be exercised by…

The French Revolution, 3 vols

Hippolyte Taine (author)

Taine’s 3 volume history of the French Revolution, written from a conservative perspective.

Friends of the Constitution: Writings of the “Other” Federalists, 1787-1788

Colleen A. Sheehan (editor)

A collection of pamphlets, speeches, and other pro-ratification writings of George Washington, Benjamin Rush, Nicholas Collin, John Dickinson, James Wilson, Tench Coxe, Benjamin Franklin, Noah Webster, Roger Sherman, Fisher Ames,…

THE READING ROOM

From the Publishing Department: Smyth Sewing

By: Dan Kirklin

“Of making many books there is no end,” said Ecclesiastes, but there have long been limits placed on their number by technology. The earliest books were scrolls, sheets of papyrus, vellum, or parchment glued together into a long…
Fugitive Essays: Selected Writings of Frank Chodorov

Frank Chodorov (author)

A collection of Chodorov’s essays selected from The Freeman and Human Events and other publications.

Further Reflections on the French Revolution

Edmund Burke (author)

Burke continued arguing about the French Revolution throughout the 1790s in a series of letters and pamphlets, the most significant being “An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs”.

George Washington: A Collection

George Washington (author)

George Washington speaks for himself on behalf of liberty and the emerging American republic. Drawing extensively on his correspondence, this volume includes all of his presidential addresses, various public proclamations, his last…

The Goodriches: An American Family

Pierre F. Goodrich (author)

A biography of one of Indiana’s most prominent twentieth-century families. It begins with the birth of James P. Goodrich in 1864 and continues through the death of his son Pierre F. Goodrich in 1973. James Goodrich served as governor…

Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment

Raoul Berger (author)

It is the thesis of this monumentally argued book that the United States Supreme Court - largely through abuses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution has embarked on “a continuing revision of the Constitution, under the…

A Historical Sketch of Liberty and Equality LF ed.)

Frederic William Maitland (author)

In 1875, at only twenty-five years of age, Maitland, in pursuit of a fellowship in Cambridge University, submitted a this remarkable work. He went on to become one of greatest legal historians of his time.

An Historical View of the English Government

John Millar (author)

An Historical View of the English Government consists of three parts, concerned with the most substantive revolutions in English government and manners: from the Saxon settlement to the Norman Conquest, from the Norman Conquest to…

The History of England, 6 vols.

David Hume (author)

Hume’s great History of England the theme of which is liberty, above all English constitutional development from the Anglo-Saxon period to the Revolution of 1688. This Liberty Fund edition is based on the edition of 1778, the last to…

The History of England, vol. 1

David Hume (author)

Volume 1 of “Hume’s great History of England the theme of which is liberty, above all English constitutional development from the Anglo-Saxon period to the Revolution of 1688. This Liberty Fund edition is based on the edition of…

The History of England, vol. 2

David Hume (author)

Volume 2 of “Hume’s great History of England the theme of which is liberty, above all English constitutional development from the Anglo-Saxon period to the Revolution of 1688. This Liberty Fund edition is based on the edition of…

The History of England, vol. 3

David Hume (author)

Volume 3 of “Hume’s great History of England the theme of which is liberty, above all English constitutional development from the Anglo-Saxon period to the Revolution of 1688. This Liberty Fund edition is based on the edition of…

The History of England, vol. 4

David Hume (author)

Volume 4 of “Hume’s great History of England the theme of which is liberty, above all English constitutional development from the Anglo-Saxon period to the Revolution of 1688. This Liberty Fund edition is based on the edition of…

The History of England, vol. 5

David Hume (author)

Volume 5 of “Hume’s great History of England the theme of which is liberty, above all English constitutional development from the Anglo-Saxon period to the Revolution of 1688. This Liberty Fund edition is based on the edition of…

The History of England, vol. 6

David Hume (author)

Volume 6 of “Hume’s great History of England the theme of which is liberty, above all English constitutional development from the Anglo-Saxon period to the Revolution of 1688. This Liberty Fund edition is based on the edition of…

The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, vol. 1

Frederic William Maitland (author)

First published in 1895, Sir Frederick Pollock and Frederic William Maitland’s legal classic The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I expanded the work of Sir Edward Coke and William Blackstone by exploring the origins…

The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, vol. 2

Frederic William Maitland (author)

First published in 1895, Sir Frederick Pollock and Frederic William Maitland’s legal classic The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I expanded the work of Sir Edward Coke and William Blackstone by exploring the origins…

The History of the American Revolution, 2 vols.

David Ramsay (author)

David Ramsay’s History of the American Revolution appeared in 1789 during an enthusiastic celebration of nationhood. It is the first American national history written by an American revolutionary and printed in America. Ramsay…

The History of the American Revolution, vol. 1

David Ramsay (author)

Vol. 1 of a 2 volume work. David Ramsay’s History of the American Revolution appeared in 1789 during an enthusiastic celebration of nationhood. It is the first American national history written by an American revolutionary and…

The History of the American Revolution, vol. 2

David Ramsay (author)

Vol. 2 of a 2 volume work. David Ramsay’s History of the American Revolution appeared in 1789 during an enthusiastic celebration of nationhood. It is the first American national history written by an American revolutionary and…

The History of the Origins of Representative Government in Europe

François Guizot (author)

Guizot reflects on the principles, goals, and institutions of representative government in Europe from the fifth to the reign of the Tudors in England. In Part 1 he examines such topics as the “true” principles of representative…

History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution 2 vols

Mercy Otis Warren (author)

Mercy Otis Warren has been described as perhaps the most formidable female intellectual in eighteenth-century America. This work (in the first new edition since 1805) is an exciting and comprehensive study of the events of the…

History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution vol. 1

Mercy Otis Warren (author)

Vol. 1 of a 2 volume work. Mercy Otis Warren has been described as perhaps the most formidable female intellectual in eighteenth-century America. This work (in the first new edition since 1805) is an exciting and comprehensive study…

History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution vol. 2

Mercy Otis Warren (author)

Vol. 2 of a 2 volume work. Mercy Otis Warren has been described as perhaps the most formidable female intellectual in eighteenth-century America. This work (in the first new edition since 1805) is an exciting and comprehensive study…

Hobbes on Civil Association

Michael Oakeshott (author)

Hobbes on Civil Association consists of Oakeshott’s four principal essays on Hobbes and on the nature of civil association as civil association pertains to ordered liberty. The essays are “Introduction to Leviathan” (1946); “The…

Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, in 4 vols. (LF ed.)

Ludwig von Mises (author)

In the foreword to Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, Mises explains complex market phenomena as “the outcomes of countless conscious, purposive actions, choices, and preferences of individuals, each of whom was trying as best as…

Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, vol. 1 (LF ed.)

Ludwig von Mises (author)

In the foreword to Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, Mises explains complex market phenomena as “the outcomes of countless conscious, purposive actions, choices, and preferences of individuals, each of whom was trying as best as…

Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, vol. 2 (LF ed.)

Ludwig von Mises (author)

In the foreword to Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, Mises explains complex market phenomena as “the outcomes of countless conscious, purposive actions, choices, and preferences of individuals, each of whom was trying as best as…

Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, vol. 3 (LF ed.)

Ludwig von Mises (author)

In the foreword to Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, Mises explains complex market phenomena as “the outcomes of countless conscious, purposive actions, choices, and preferences of individuals, each of whom was trying as best as…

Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, vol. 4 (LF ed.)

Ludwig von Mises (author)

The 4th and final volume contains a brief appendix by Mises on the work of Boehm-Bawerk and a glossary of terms prepared by the editor.

The Ideal Element in Law

Roscoe Pound (author)

Roscoe Pound, former dean of Harvard Law School, delivered a series of lectures at the University of Calcutta in 1948. In these lectures, he criticized virtually every modern mode of interpreting the law because he believed the…

The Illusion of the Epoch: Marxism-Leninism as a Philosophical Creed

H.B. Acton (author)

Written nearly fifty years ago, at a time when the world was still wrestling with the concepts of Marx and Lenin, The Illusion of the Epoch is the perfect resource for understanding the roots of Marxism-Leninism and its implications…

In Defense of the Constitution

George W. Carey (author)

In Defense of the Constitution refutes modern critics of the Constitution who assail it as “reactionary” or “undemocratic.” The author argues that modern disciples of Progressivism are determined to centralize political control in…

In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Government

Charles Murray (author)

In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Government begins by examining James Madison’s statement: “A good government implies two things; first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a…

An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1726, 2004)

Francis Hutcheson (author)

A seminal text of the Scottish Enlightenment which was written as a critical response to the work of Bernard Mandeville and as a defense of the ideas of Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord Shaftesbury. It consists of two treatises exploring…

Institutes of Divine Jurisprudence. With Selections from Foundations of the Law of Nature and Nations

Christian Thomasius (author)

First published in 1688, Thomasius’s Institutes attempted to draw a clear distinction between natural and revealed law and to emphasize that human reason was able to know the precepts of natural law without the aid of Scripture. His…

Interventionism: An Economic Analysis

Ludwig von Mises (author)

Interventionism provides Mises’s analysis of the problems of government interference in business from the Austrian School perspective. Written in 1940, before the United States was officially involved in World War II, this book…

Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (LF ed.)

Albert Venn Dicey (author)

Liberty Fund’s edition of Dicey’s most famous work on English constitutional law in which he defended the idea of the sovereignty of parliament under an independent judiciary and the rule of law.

Judgments on History and Historians

Jacob Burckhardt (author)

Judgments on History and Historians consists of records collected by Emil Dürr from Burckhardt’s lecture notes for history courses at the University of Basel from 1865 to 1885. The notes span five eras: Antiquity, the Middle Ages,…

Justice and Its Surroundings

Anthony de Jasay (author)

Author of The State, Anthony de Jasay, has been described as one of the few genuinely original minds in modern political philosophy. He breaks new ground with Justice and Its Surroundings - a new collection of essays that seek to…

The Lamp of Experience

Trevor Colbourn (author)

In a landmark work, a leading scholar of the eighteenth century examines the ways in which an understanding of the nature of history, seen as as a continual struggle between liberty and virtue on one hand and arbitrary power and…

The Law of Nations (LF ed.)

Emer de Vattel (author)

A republication of the 1797 translation of Vattel’s work, along with new English translations of 3 early essays.

Read the Liberty Classic on this title from Law & Liberty

Lectures on the French Revolution (LF ed.)

John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton (author)

Delivered at Cambridge University between 1895 and 1899, Lectures on the French Revolution is a distinguished account of the entire epochal chapter in French experience by one of the most remarkable English historians of the…

Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion (LF ed.)

Albert Venn Dicey (author)

This volume brings together a series of lectures A. V. Dicey first gave at Harvard Law School on the influence of public opinion in England during the nineteenth century and its impact on legislation. It is an accessible attempt by…

A Letter concerning Toleration and Other Writings

John Locke (author)

Part of the Thomas Hollis Library published by Liberty Fund. This volume contains A Letter Concerning Toleration, excerpts of the Third Letter, An Essay on Toleration, and various fragments.

The Liberal Mind

Kenneth Minogue (author)

Kenneth Minogue offers a brilliant and provocative exploration of liberalism in the Western world today: its roots and its influences, its present state, and its prospects in the new century. Minogue argues most Americans and most…

Liberalism: The Classical Tradition (1927) (LF ed.)

Ludwig von Mises (author)

The great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises provides a concise and tightly-argued one volume defense of classical liberalism, focusing on the core concepts of private property, limited government, peace, and the free market.

Liberty and American Experience in the Eighteenth Century

David Womersely (editor)

This collection examines themes and ideologies central to the formation of the United States including Edmund Burke’s theories on property rights and government, the influence of Jamaica on the American colonies, the relations…

Liberty and Order: The First American Party Struggle

Lance Banning (editor)

An anthology of primary sources which documents the first great party struggle in American history between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists over the proper construction of the new Constitution, political economy, the…

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (LF ed.)

James Fitzjames Stephen (author)

The Liberty Fund edition of this work. Impugning John Stuart Mill’s famous treatise, On Liberty, Stephen criticized Mill for turning abstract doctrines of the French Revolution into “the creed of a religion.” Only the constraints of…

Liberty, Order, and Justice

James McClellan (author)

Liberty, Order, and Justice seeks to familiarize students with the basic principles of the Constitution, and to explain their origin, meaning, and purpose. Particular emphasis is placed on federalism and the separation of powers.…

The Life of George Washington

John Marshall (author)

A one volume abridgement of the first major biography of Washington by John Marshall who became the third Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. An influential conservative interpretation. The volume also contains 5 of the more…

Logic, Metaphysics, and the Natural Sociability of Mankind

Francis Hutcheson (author)

Until the publication of this Liberty Fund edition, all but one of the works contained in Logic, Metaphysics, and the Natural Sociability of Mankind were available only in Latin. In the words of the editors: “Hutcheson’s Latin texts…

The Making of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America

James T. Schleifer (author)

A model of intellectual history which documents where, when, and under what influences Alexis de Tocqueville wrote different sections of his Democracy in America and how the central themes of that work - democracy, individualism,…

The Man versus the State, with Six Essays on Government, Society and Freedom (LF ed.)

Herbert Spencer (author)

This volume contains the four essays that Spencer published as The Man Versus the State in 1884 as well as five essays added by later publishers. In addition, it provides “The Proper Sphere of Government,” an important early essay by…

Market Theory and the Price System (2011)

Israel M. Kirzner (author)

The second volume in Liberty Fund’s The Collected Works of Israel M. Kirzner series, Market Theory and the Price System was published in 1963 as Kirzner’s only textbook. The basic aim of Market Theory is to utilize the tools of…

The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (2008)

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (author)

This influential classical work offers a vision of a universe governed by a natural law that obliges us to love mankind and to govern our lives in accordance with the natural order of things. Editors Hutcheson and Moor contrasted the…

A Methodical System of Universal Law: Or, the Laws of Nature and Nations

Johann Gottlieb Heineccius (author)

The natural law theory of Johann Gottlieb Heineccius was one of the most influential to emerge from the early German Enlightenment. Heineccius continued and, in important respects, modified the ideas of his predecessors, Samuel…

My Thoughts (Mes Pensées) (1720, 2012)

Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (author)

My Thoughts provides a unique window into the mind of the author of The Spirit of the Laws. From the publication of his first masterpiece, Persian Letters, in 1721, until his death in 1755, Montesquieu maintained notebooks in which…

Nation, State, and Economy: Contributions to the Politics and History of Our Time

Ludwig von Mises (author)

Nation, State, and Economy, published less than a year after Austria’s defeat in World War I, examines and compares prewar and postwar economic conditions and explicates Mises’s theory that each country’s prosperity supports rather…

The Natural Law: A Study in Legal and Social History and Philosophy

Heinrich Rommen (author)

Originally published in German in 1936, The Natural Law is the first work to clarify the differences between traditional natural law as represented in the writings of Cicero, Aquinas, and Hooker and the revolutionary doctrines of…

The Writings of Gershom Carmichael

Gershom Carmichael (author)

Carmichael was a Scottish jurist and philosopher who became the first Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow in 1727. His writings on natural rights theory, theology, and logic were very influential.

Of the Nature and Qualification of Religion, in Reference to Civil Society

Samuel von Pufendorf (author)

In this work Pufendorf argues for the separation of politics and religion. Written in response to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by the French king, Louis XIV, Pufendorf contests the right of the sovereign to control the…

New Individualist Review

Milton Friedman (author)

Initially sponsored by the University of Chicago Chapter of the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists, the New Individualist Review was more than the usual “campus magazine.” It declared itself “founded in a commitment to human…

North, Sir Dudley (1641-1691)

Related Links:

Source: This biographical information comes from the editor's notes to Commerce, Culture, and Liberty: Readings on Capitalism before Adam Smith, ed. Henry C. Clark (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2003).

Dudley North was…

Notes and Recollections with The Historical Setting of the Austrian School of Economics (2013)

Ludwig von Mises (author)

This volume contains Mises' brief memoir Notes and Recollections he wrote just prior to migrating to the U.S. in 1940 and an essay on the history of the Austrian school of economics from 1962. His memoir is accompanied by a…

Observations on “The Two Sons of Oil” (LF ed.)

William Findley (author)

Observations on “The Two Sons of Oil” was written in 1811 in response to the Reverend Samuel B. Wylie’s work, The Two Sons of Oil, , Wylie pointed out what he considered to be deficiencies in the constitutions of both Pennsylvania…

Observations upon Liberal Education, in All its Branches

George Turnbull (author)

Turnbull was the first member of the Scottish Enlightenment to provide a formal treatise on the theory and practice of education. He applied his ideas on the moral sense to the education of youth. Turnbull showed how a liberal…

THE READING ROOM

OLL’s May Birthday: Friedrich von Gentz (May 2, 1764 – June 9, 1832)

By: Peter Carl Mentzel

This May’s Birthday Essay is in honor of the political journalist and statesman Friedrich Gentz. Though born a commoner, he called himself von Gentz after he was knighted by the Swedish crown in 1804. Gentz made an intellectual…
Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War

Ludwig von Mises (author)

Published in 1944, during World War II, Omnipotent Government was written and published after Mises arrived in the United States. In this volume Mises provides in economic terms an explanation of the international conflicts that…

On the Manipulation of Money and Credit: Three Treatises on Trade-Cycle Theory

Ludwig von Mises (author)

On the Manipulation of Money and Credit includes some of Mises’s most important contributions to monetary and trade-cycle theories. “Stabilization of the Monetary Unit from the Viewpoint of Theory,” discusses the consequences of the…

The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks

John Millar (author)

The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks is one of the major products of the Scottish Enlightenment and a masterpiece of jurisprudence and social theory. Millar developed a progressive account of the nature of authority in society by…

The Origins and Principles of the American Revolution

Friedrich von Gentz (author)

Gentz was a conservative German who supported the American Revolution but strongly opposed the French. This work was originally published in a journal Gentz edited in May and June 1800 and was translated by John Quincy Adams. Liberty…

The French Revolution, vol. 1

Hippolyte Taine (author)

The 1st volume of Hippolyte Taine’s 3 volume history of the French Revolution which is part of his history of modern France, The Origins of Contemporary France

The French Revolution, vol. 2

Hippolyte Taine (author)

The 2nd volume of Hippolyte Taine’s 3 volume history of the French Revolution which is part of his 5 part history of modern France, The Origins of Contemporary France.

The French Revolution, vol. 3

Hippolyte Taine (author)

The 3rd volume of Hippolyte Taine’s 3 volume history of the French Revolution which is part of his history of modern France, The Origins of Contemporary France.

The Pacificus-Helvidius Debates of 1793-1794

Alexander Hamilton (author)

The Pacificus–Helvidius Debates of 1793–1794 matched Hamilton and Madison in the first chapter of an enduring discussion about the proper roles of the executive and legislative branches in the conduct of American foreign policy. The…

The Perfectibility of Man

John Passmore (author)

Thoroughly and elegantly, Passmore explores the history of the idea of perfectibility - manifest in the ideology of perfectibilism - and its consequences, which have invariably been catastrophic for individual liberty and…

A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel

Pierre Bayle (author)

In this defence of religious toleration, Bayle discusses the words attributed to Jesus Christ in Luke 14:23, “And the Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be…

Planning for Freedom: Let the Market System Work. A Collection of Essays and Addresses

Ludwig von Mises (author)

In this anthology, Mises offers an articulate and accessible introduction to and critique of two topics he considers especially important: inflation and government interventionism.

A Plea for Liberty: An Argument against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation (LF ed.)

Thomas Mackay (author)

This collection of essays was originally published in 1891 in response to a collection of Fabian Essays on Socialism which advocated policies which would eventually lead to the modern welfare state. The theoretical and empirical…

Politica

Johannes Althusius (author)

Politica presents a unique vision of the commonwealth as a harmonious ordering of natural associations. According to Althusius, power and authority grow from more local to more general associations. Of particular interest to the…

Political Sermons of the American Founding Era. Vol. 1 (1730-1788)

Ellis Sandoz (editor)

Volume I of a large two volume collection of sermons written between 1730-1805 by people such as Jonathan Mayhew, John Wesley, Moses Mather, John Witherspoon, Richard Price, Jonathan Edwards, and Noah Webster.

Political Sermons of the American Founding Era. Vol. 2 (1789-1805)

Ellis Sandoz (editor)

Volume 2 of a large two volume collection of sermons written between 1730-1805 by people such as Jonathan Mayhew, John Wesley, Moses Mather, John Witherspoon, Richard Price, Jonathan Edwards, and Noah Webster.

The Political Writings of William Penn

William Penn (author)

This volume illuminates the origins and development of Penn’s thought by presenting complete and annotated texts of all his important political works. Penn’s early political writings illuminate the Whig understanding of English…

The Present Age

Robert A. Nisbet (author)

Nisbet examines the role of the United States in the world since World War I focusing on the threats that the unprecedented militarization of American life in the decades after 1914, bureaucracy, centralization, and creeping…

The Present State of Germany

Samuel von Pufendorf (author)

The editor of this volume, Michael J. Seidler, describes this work of Pufendorf as “an account of German constitutional law detailing the historical relations between the Emperor and the Estates as well as an examination of the…

Principles of Equity

Henry Home, Lord Kames (author)

Principles of Equity is Kames’s most lasting contribution to jurisprudence. He sought to explain the distinction between the nature of equity and common law and to address related questions, such as whether equity should be bound by…

The Principles of Ethics, 2 vols. (1879) (LF ed.)

Herbert Spencer (author)

A two volume work which Spencer considered to be his finest work. In volume I he covers the data of ethics, the inductions of ethics, and the ethics of individual life. In the second volume he covers the ethics of social life (or…

The Principles of Ethics, vol. 1 (LF ed.)

Herbert Spencer (author)

Vol. I of a two volume work which Spencer considered to be his finest work. In volume I he covers the data of ethics, the inductions of ethics, and the ethics of individual life.

Read the Liberty Classic on this title from Econlib.

The Principles of Ethics, vol. 2 (LF ed.)

Herbert Spencer (author)

Spencer considered The Principles of Ethics to be his finest work. In the second volume he covers the ethics of social life (or justice), negative beneficence, positive beneficence, and a number of topics in several appendices (such…

The Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy, 2 vols.

George Turnbull (author)

The Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy presents the first masterpiece of Scottish Common Sense philosophy. This two-volume treatise is important for its wide range of insights about the nature of the human mind, the…

The Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy. Vol. 1

George Turnbull (author)

The Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy presents the first masterpiece of Scottish Common Sense philosophy. This two-volume treatise is important for its wide range of insights about the nature of the human mind, the…

The Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy. Vol. 2: Christian Philosophy

George Turnbull (author)

The Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy presents the first masterpiece of Scottish Common Sense philosophy. This two-volume treatise is important for its wide range of insights about the nature of the human mind, the…

The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy

William Paley (author)

This classic work by William Paley was one of the most popular books in England and America in the early nineteenth century. Its significance lies in the fact that it marks an important point at which eighteenth century “whiggism”…

The Principles of Natural and Politic Law

Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui (author)

The basis of this version of The Principles of Natural and Politic Law is Thomas Nugent’s 1763 English translation. The first scholarly work on Burlamaqui was written by an American, M. Ray Forrest Harvey, who in 1937 argued that…

Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments

Benjamin Constant (author)

In Principles of Politics, Constant “explores many subjects: law, sovereignty, and representation; power and accountability; government, property and taxation; wealth and poverty; war, peace, and the maintenance of public order; and…

The Rationale of Central Banking and the Free Banking Alternative

Vera C. Smith (author)

Written as a doctoral dissertation under Friedrich Hayek at the London School of Economics in the early 1930s, the book covers the history of free banking in the 19th century and reviews the theoretical arguments both for and against…

Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks

Edward Wortley Montagu (author)

Montagu’s warnings in Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks are unusual in that each of the five states he examines supplies a separate lesson adapted to the needs of Britain during the crisis. Discussion of…

On Religion Considered in Its Source, Its Forms, and Its Developments

Benjamin Constant (author)

Constant worked on this study of humanity’s religious forms and development throughout his life, publishing five volumes between 1824 and 1831. He sought to relate religious forms to historical contexts and civilizational…

The Representation of Business in English Literature

John Blundell (foreword)

In The Representation of Business in English Literature, five scholars of different periods of English literature produce original essays on how business and businesspeople have been portrayed by novelists, starting in the eighteenth…

Revolutionary Writings

John Adams (author)

This volume contains the principal shorter writings in which Adams addresses the prospect of revolution and the form of government proper to the new United States. There are pieces on the nature of the British Constitution and the…

The Revolutionary Writings of Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton (author)

This is a comprehensive collection of Hamilton’s early writings, from the period before and during the Revolutionary War, and includes The Continentalist, lettters by Publius, and Remarks on the Quebec Bill.

The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State and Other Essays (1978 ed.)

Auberon Herbert (author)

A collection of essays by a leading late-19th century radical individualist and follower of the ideas of Herbert Spencer. Herbert discusses the moral problems of state coercion, especially when applied to state education, and…

The Rights of War and Peace (2005 ed.) 3 vols

Hugo Grotius (author)

Grotius’s Rights of War and Peace is a classic of modern public international law which lays the foundation for a universal code of law and which strongly defends the rights of individual agents - states as well as private persons -…

The Rights of War and Peace (2005 ed.) vol. 1 (Book I)

Hugo Grotius (author)

Grotius’s Rights of War and Peace is a classic of modern public international law which lays the foundation for a universal code of law and which strongly defends the rights of individual agents - states as well as private persons -…

The Rights of War and Peace (2005 ed.) vol. 2 (Book II)

Hugo Grotius (author)

Grotius’s Rights of War and Peace is a classic of modern public international law which lays the foundation for a universal code of law and which strongly defends the rights of individual agents - states as well as private persons -…

The Rights of War and Peace (2005 ed.) vol. 3 (Book III)

Hugo Grotius (author)

Grotius’s Rights of War and Peace is a classic of modern public international law which lays the foundation for a universal code of law and which strongly defends the rights of individual agents - states as well as private persons -…

The Roots of Liberty: Magna Carta and the Anglo-American Tradition of Rule of Law

John Phillip Reid (author)

This is a critical collection of essays on the origin and nature of the idea of liberty. The authors explore the development of English ideas of liberty and the relationship those ideas hold to modern conceptions of rule of law.

Scholasticism and Politics (1940, 2011)

Jacques Maritain (author)

Scholasticism and Politics, first published in 1940, is a collection of nine lectures Jacques Maritain delivered at the University of Chicago in 1938. Maritain championed the cause of what he called personalist democracy—a regime…

Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 1

Francis Canavan (foreword)

This volume contains Burke’s speeches on the crisis between Great Britain and the American colonies. He did not dispute the right of the crown to tax the colonies but objected to doing so without the consent of the colonists.

Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 2

Francis Canavan (foreword)

Burke’s classic criticism of the French Revolution. It provoked many replies and Burke returned to the issue again and again.

Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 3

Francis Canavan (foreword)

The four letters in this volume (1795) were Burke’s last writings on the French Revolution. Even though the Terror had come to an end and a more moderate government known as the Directory had come to power Burke still thought that…

Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 4

Francis Canavan (foreword)

This volume contains some of Burke’s speeches on parliamentary reform, on colonial policy in India, and on economic matters.

The Selected Works of Gordon Tullock, vol. 3 The Organization of Inquiry

Gordon Tullock (author)

In The Organization of Inquiry, Gordon Tullock sets out to answer such questions as: how do scientists engage in apparently cooperative contributions in the absence of hierarchic organization and why are scientific contributions…

Selected Writings of Ludwig von Mises, 3 vols

Ludwig von Mises (author)

A three volume collection of Mises’s writings from the so-called “lost papers” found in a Moscow archive in 1996. These were seized by the Gestapo and then taken back to Russia after the war by the Russian government.

Selected Writings of Ludwig von Mises, vol. 1: Monetary and Economic Problems Before, During, and After the Great War

Richard Ebeling (editor)

Vol. 1 of a three volume collection. The articles that comprise this book include Mises’s policy memoranda, essays, and speeches that were found in a formerly secret KGB archive in Moscow. They deal with Mises’s thoughts on the…

Selected Writings of Ludwig von Mises, vol. 2: Between the Two World Wars: Monetary Disorder, Interventionism, Socialism, and the Great Depression

Ludwig von Mises (author)

Vol. 2 of a three volume collection of Mises' essays found in Moscow in 1996. Vol. 2 contains essays on inflation, interventionism, the great depression, Austrian economic policy, autarchy, the theory of Austrian economics, and…

Selected Writings of Ludwig von Mises, vol. 3: The Political Economy of International Reform and Reconstruction

Ludwig von Mises (author)

Vol. 3 of a three volume collection of Mises' essays found in Moscow in 1996. Vol. 3 contains essays on postwar reconstruction, American foreign trade policy, monetary policy, and plans for European union.

Selected Writings of Sir Edward Coke, vol. I

Steve Shepherd (editor)

Vol. 1 of a 3 vol. set of The Selected Writings. This volume contains a long introduction by the editor and 13 parts of the Reports.

Selected Writings of Sir Edward Coke, vol. II

Steve Shepherd (editor)

Vol. 2 of a 3 vol. set of The Selected Writings. This volume contains Coke’s Speech at Norwich, excerpts from the small treatises, and excerpts from the 4 parts of the Institutes.

Selected Writings of Sir Edward Coke, vol. III

Steve Shepherd (editor)

Vol. 3 of a 3 vol. set of The Selected Writings. This volume contains Coke’s speech in Parliament (including the Petition of Right), a number of official acts related to Coke’s career, and other matters.

Selections from Three Works

Francisco Suárez (author)

The bulk of the selections in this volume are from A Treatise on Laws and God the Lawgiver (1612). In the Treatise Suárez presented a systematic account of human moral activity in all its dimensions, synthesizing the entire…

THE READING ROOM

Shaftesbury’s Theory of a “Moral Sense” Sets the Direction of the British Enlightenment (Part 1)

By: Walter Donway

The moral sense is “predominant...inwardly joined to us, and implanted in our nature...a first principle in our constitution...” Lord Shaftesbury

THE READING ROOM

Shaftesbury’s Theory of a “Moral Sense” Sets the Direction of the British Enlightenment (Part 2)

By: Walter Donway

“T’was Mr. Locke that struck all fundamentals, threw all order and virtue out of the world...” Lord Shaftesbury
A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy (LF bi-lingual ed.) (1747)

Francis Hutcheson (author)

This Liberty Fund publication of Philosophiae Moralis Institutio Compendiaria is a parallel edition of the English and Latin versions of a book designed by Hutcheson for use in the classroom.

Sketches of the History of Man, 3 vols.

Henry Home, Lord Kames (author)

Written late in his life, this 3 volume work deals with the idea of human progress. Vol. 1 deals with progress in property law, commerce, the treatment of women, and luxury. Vol. 2 deals with the development of states, government,…

Sketches of the History of Man, vol. 1

James A. Harris (editor)

Written late in his life, this 3 volume work deals with the idea of human progress. Vol. 1 deals with progress in property law, commerce, the treatment of women, and luxury. Vol. 2 deals with the development of states, government,…

Sketches of the History of Man, vol. 2

James A. Harris (editor)

Written late in his life, this 3 volume work deals with the idea of human progress. Vol. 1 deals with progress in property law, commerce, the treatment of women, and luxury. Vol. 2 deals with the development of states, government,…

Sketches of the History of Man, vol. 3

James A. Harris (editor)

Written late in his life, this 3 volume work deals with the idea of human progress. Vol. 1 deals with progress in property law, commerce, the treatment of women, and luxury. Vol. 2 deals with the development of states, government,…

Social Contract, Free Ride: A Study of the Public Goods Problem

Anthony de Jasay (author)

Jasay refutes the common idea that we need a government as a provider of public goods. He argues that without taxation voluntary contributions to provide freely accessible benefits would be made by some members of groups adjusting…

Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

Ludwig von Mises (author)

This is a newly annotated edition of the classic first published in German in 1922. It is the definitive refutation of nearly every type of socialism ever devised. Mises presents a wide-ranging analysis of society, comparing the…

The State

Anthony de Jasay (author)

The State is a brilliant analysis of modern political arrangements that views the state as acting in its own interest contrary to the interests of individuals and even of an entire society.

Read the Liberty Classic on this title from…

United States. Declaration of Independence. United States–Politics and government–1775-1783.

John Maxcy Zane (author)

Written for the layman as well as the attorney, The Story of Law is the only complete outline history of the law ever published. Zane lucidly describes the growth and improvement of the law over thousands of years, and he points out…

The Struggle for Sovereignty, 2 vols.

Joyce Lee Malcolm (editor)

The political tracts of the English peoples in the seventeenth century established enduring principles of governance and of liberty that benefited not only themselves but the founders of the American republic. These writings, by the…

The Struggle for Sovereignty: Seventeenth-Century English Political Tracts, vol. 1

Joyce Lee Malcolm (editor)

The political tracts of the English peoples in the seventeenth century established principles of governance and of liberty that benefited not only themselves but the founders of the American republic. These writings, by the renowned…

The Struggle for Sovereignty: Seventeenth-Century English Political Tracts, vol. 2

Joyce Lee Malcolm (editor)

The political tracts of the English peoples in the seventeenth century established principles of governance and of liberty that benefited not only themselves but the founders of the American republic. These writings, by the renowned…

On Temporal and Spiritual Authority

Robert Bellarmine (author)

The political thought of Bellarmine was at the center of post-Reformation debates on the relationship between state and church; on the nature, aim, and limits of temporal government; and on the relation between religion and natural…

THE READING ROOM

The Best of the OLL No. 10: James M. Buchanan, “The Threat of Leviathan” (1975)

By: James M. Buchanan

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. This one comes from James Buchanan’s book *The Limits of Liberty* in which he warns of the dangers…
Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution (LF ed.)

Ludwig von Mises (author)

Theory and History is primarily a critique of Karl Marx, his materialism, and his prediction of the inevitability of socialism. This book discusses the theory of economics, i.e., the study of purposive human action, and with history,…

The Theory of Money and Credit

Ludwig von Mises (author)

The Theory of Money and Credit opened new economic vistas. It integrated monetary theory into the main body of economic analysis for the first time, providing fresh new insights into the nature of money and its role in the economy.…

To Secure the Blessings of Liberty: Selected Writings

Gouverneur Morris (author)

Morris served as Deputy Superintendent of Finance during the American Revolution and devised the system of decimal coinage. As a member of the Committee on Style and Arrangement, he put the Constitution in its present form and…

Tocqueville’s Voyages: The Evolution of His Ideas and Their Journey Beyond His Time

Christine Dunn Henderson (editor)

Tocqueville’s Voyages is a collection of newly written essays by some of the most well-known Tocquevillian scholars today. The essays in the first part of the volume explore the development of Tocqueville’s thought, his intellectual…

A Treatise of the Laws of Nature

Richard Cumberland (author)

A Treatise of the Laws of Nature, first appeared in 1672 as a theoretical response to a range of issues that came together during the late 1660s. It argued that science might offer an effective means of demonstrating the contents and…

A Treatise on Political Economy (LF ed.)

Antoine Louis Claude, Comte Destutt de Tracy (author)

Destutt de Tracy’s Treatise on Political Economy is a foundational text of nineteenth-century, free-market economic thought and remains one of the classics of nineteenth-century French economic liberalism. Destutt de Tracy was one of…

Two Books of the Elements of Universal Jurisprudence

Samuel von Pufendorf (author)

This was Pufendorf’s first work, published in 1660. Its appearance inaugurated the modern natural-law movement in the German-speaking world. The work also established Pufendorf as a key figure and laid the foundations for his major…

Tyranny Unmasked

John Taylor (author)

John Taylor of Caroline (1753-1824) was one of the foremost philosophers of the States’ rights Jeffersonians of the early national period. In keeping with his lifelong mission as a “minority man,” John Taylor wrote Tyranny Unmasked

The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method

Ludwig von Mises (author)

Written toward the end of Mises’s life, his last monograph, The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, returned to economics as a science based on human action.

Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun

John C. Calhoun (author)

These writings address such issues as states’ rights and nullification, slavery, the growth of the Federal judicial power, and Calhoun’s doctrine of the “concurrent majority.” This selection presents twelve notable speeches, letters,…

Universal Economics

Armen A. Alchian (author)

Universal Economics shows the critical importance of property rights to the existence and success of market economies.

View of the Constitution of the United States with Selected Writings

St. George Tucker (author)

View of the Constitutionwas the first extended, systematic commentary on the United States Constitution after its ratification and later its amendment by the Bill of Rights. As Clyde N. Wilson notes, “Tucker is the exponent of…

A Vindication of Natural Society

Edmund Burke (author)

Edmund Burke’s first work, originally issued anonymously in 1756 as a letter attributed to “a late noble writer.” The Vindication is a political and social satire ridiculing the popular enlightenment notion of a pre-civil “natural…

Vindiciae Gallicae and Other Writings on the French Revolution

Sir James Mackintosh (author)

Vindiciae Gallicae was Mackintosh’s contribution to the debate begun by Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. A Discourse on the Law of Nature and Nations was the introduction to a popular course of public lectures at…

The Webster-Hayne Debate on the Nature of the Constitution: Selected Documents

Herman Belz (editor)

The debates between Daniel Webster and Robert Hayne gave utterance to the differing understandings of the nature of the American Union that had come to predominate in the North and the South by 1830. To Webster the Union was the…

The Whole Duty of Man According to the Law of Nature (1673, 2003)

Samuel von Pufendorf (author)

The Whole Duty of Man (first published in Latin in 1673), was among the first works to suggest a purely conventional basis for natural law. Rejecting scholasticism’s metaphysical theories, Pufendorf found the source of natural law in…

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, 11 vols (Sraffa ed.)

David Ricardo (author)

This eleven-volume set of The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo contains all of Ricardo’s published and unpublished writings, and provides great insight into the early era of political economics by chronicling Ricardo’s…

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 1 Principles of Political Economy and Taxation

David Ricardo (author)

On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation provides analysis of the allocation of money between capitalists, landowners, and agricultural workers in Britain. Through this analysis, Ricardo came to advocate free trade and…

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 2 Notes on Malthus

David Ricardo (author)

David Ricardo and T. R. Malthus were friends despite a contentious divergence of opinion on many political economic issues. This volume contains the formal remnants of their differences. Ricardo analyzes, issue-by-issue, his points…

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 3 Pamphlets and Papers 1809-1811

Piero Sraffa (editor)

This volume focuses on Ricardo’s shorter essays printed in the Morning Chronicle, which deal with his thoughts on the inflationary monetary policy of the Bank of England and the Bullion Crises. In these essays, the genesis of Ricardo…

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 4 Pamphlets and Papers 1815-1823

Piero Sraffa (editor)

This volume contains a collection of assorted short essays written for publication in the latter part of David Ricardo’s life from 1815 to 1823. These essays include: An Essay on the Influence of a low Price of Corn on the Profits of…

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 5 Speeches and Evidence

Piero Sraffa (editor)

Speeches and Evidence contains the texts of Ricardo’s numerous speeches. It consists of his speeches given in the House of Commons and evidentiary advocacies before Parliamentary committees. The introduction provides insightful…

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 6 Letters 1810-1815

Piero Sraffa (editor)

Volume 6 is the introductory volume to the four volumes containing relevant letters between Ricardo and many influential thinkers of his age. Many of these letters influenced the development of Ricardo’s ideas on political economy.…

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 7 Letters 1816-1818

Piero Sraffa (editor)

Volume 7 is the second volume of four volumes comprising the collection of Ricardo’s letters. It spans the years of Ricardo’s life from 1816 to 1818. This period saw the development and initial defense of his most influential work On…

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 8 Letters 1819-June 1821

Piero Sraffa (editor)

This period of Ricardo’s life witnessed his entrance into Parliament as a member of the House of Commons where he became an influential advocate of free trade through his opposition to Britain’s restrictive “Corn laws.” These letters…

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 9 Letters 1821-1823

Piero Sraffa (editor)

The letters in this volume continue to cover Ricardo’s correspondence while a member of the House of Commons and provide subtle refinements and elaborations to his political economic thoughts. This volume includes a complete index to…

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 10 Biographical Miscellany

Maurice Herbert Dobb (editor)

This volume is a collection of personal correspondence and recollections that focus on Ricardo’s life outside of his political economic endeavors. These missives concern Ricardo’s character, his amiable and generous nature, his…

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 11 General Index

Maurice Herbert Dobb (editor)

The last volume of this collection is a comprehensive index to the previous ten volumes of The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo.

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Quotes

Politics & Liberty

Charles Murray on the pursuit of happiness (1988)

Charles Murray

Colonies, Slavery & Abolition

George Washington on War and Peace

George Washington

The State

James Buchanan on chaining Leviathan (1975)

James M. Buchanan

Parties & Elections

James Madison on the dangers of elections resulting in overbearing majorities who respect neither justice nor individual rights, Federalist 10 (1788)

James Madison

Politics & Liberty

James Madison on the mischievous effects of mutable government in The Federalist no. 62 (1788)

James Madison

Politics & Liberty

James Madison on the need for the “separation of powers” because “men are not angels,” Federalist 51 (1788)

James Madison

Law

Jasay on the superiority of “spontaneous conventions” over “legal frameworks” (2007)

Anthony de Jasay

Colonies, Slavery & Abolition

John Calhoun on Compromises

John C. Calhoun

Parties & Elections

Lance Banning argues that within a decade of the creation of the US Constitution the nation was engaged in a bitter battle over the soul of the American Republic (2004)

Lance Banning

Politics & Liberty

Lord Acton on the destruction of the liberal Girondin group and the suicide of Condorcet during the French Revolution (1910)

John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton

Revolution

Lord Acton on the storming of “the instrument and the emblem of tyranny” in Paris, the Bastille, on July 14, 1789 (1910)

John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton

Socialism & Interventionism

Ludwig von Mises argues that monopolies are the direct result of government intervention and not the product of any inherent tendency within the capitalist system (1949)

Ludwig von Mises

Economics

Ludwig von Mises argues that the division of labor and human cooperation are the two sides of the same coin and are not antagonistic to each other (1949)

Ludwig von Mises

Money & Banking

Ludwig von Mises identifies the source of the disruption of the world monetary order as the failed policies of governments and their central banks (1934)

Ludwig von Mises

War & Peace

Ludwig von Mises laments the passing of the Age of Limited Warfare and the coming of Mass Destruction in the Age of Statism and Conquest (1949)

Ludwig von Mises

Money & Banking

Ludwig von Mises lays out five fundamental truths of monetary expansion (1949)

Ludwig von Mises

Presidents, Kings, Tyrants, & Despots

Madame de Staël argues that Napoleon was able to create a tyrannical government by pandering to men’s interests, corrupting public opinion, and waging constant war (1817)

Germaine de Staël

Liberty

Madame de Staël on how liberty is ancient and despotism is modern (1818)

Germaine de Staël

Presidents, Kings, Tyrants, & Despots

Madame de Staël on the tyrant Napoleon (1818)

Germaine de Staël

Liberty

Madison on “Parchment Barriers” and the defence of liberty I (1788)

James Madison

Politics & Liberty

Mercy Otis Warren asks why people are so willing to obey the government and answers that it is supineness, fear of resisting, and the long habit of obedience (1805)

Mercy Otis Warren

Revolution

Mercy Otis Warren on Civil and Religious Rights and Tyranny

Mercy Otis Warren

Liberty

Milton Friedman and the Free Society

Milton Friedman

The State

Milton Friedman on the Deconcentration of Power

Milton Friedman

Socialism & Interventionism

Mises and the Emergence of Etatism in Germany (1944)

Ludwig von Mises

Socialism & Interventionism

Mises on “interventionism” as a third way between the free market and socialism (1930)

Ludwig von Mises

Money & Banking

Mises on classical liberalism and the gold standard (1928)

Ludwig von Mises

War & Peace

Mises on cosmopolitan cooperation and peace (1927)

Ludwig von Mises

Socialism & Interventionism

Mises on how price controls lead to socialism (1944)

Ludwig von Mises

Sport and Liberty

Mises on human action, football, and predicting the future (1966)

Ludwig von Mises

Liberty

Mises on liberalism and the battle of ideas (1927)

Ludwig von Mises

Economics

Mises on the consumer as the “captain” of the economic ship (1944)

Ludwig von Mises

Money & Banking

Mises on the gold standard as the symbol of international peace and prosperity (1949)

Ludwig von Mises

Economics

Mises on the interconnection between economic and political freedom (1949)

Ludwig von Mises

Taxation

Mises on the public sector as “tax eaters” who “feast” on the assets of the ordinary tax payer (1953)

Ludwig von Mises

Money & Banking

Mises on the State Theory of Money (1912)

Ludwig von Mises

The State

Mises on the worship of the state or statolatry (1944)

Ludwig von Mises

Colonies, Slavery & Abolition

Mises on wealth creation and stopping the spirit of predatory militarism (1949)

Ludwig von Mises

Socialism & Interventionism

Mises states that it is the division of labor which makes man truly “social” or “communal” (1922)

Ludwig von Mises

Presidents, Kings, Tyrants, & Despots

Shaftesbury opposes the nonresisting test bill before the House of Lords as a step towards “absolute and arbitrary” government (1675)

Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury

Origin of Government

Sidney argues that a People’s liberty is a gift of nature and exists prior to any government (1683)

Algernon Sidney

Law

Sir Edward Coke declares that your house is your “Castle and Fortress” (1604)

Sir Edward Coke

Law

Sir Edward Coke defends British Liberties and the Idea of Habeas Corpus in the Petition of Right before Parliament (1628)

Sir Edward Coke

Law

Sir Edward Coke explains one of the key sections of Magna Carta on English liberties (1642)

Sir Edward Coke

Money & Banking

The 11th Day of Christmas: Mises on the gold standard and peace on earth (1934)

Ludwig von Mises

Sport and Liberty

The Earl of Shaftesbury relates the story of an unscrupulous glazier who gives the rowdy town youths a football so they will smash windows in the street and thus drum up business (1737)

Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury

Odds & Ends

The Earl of Shaftesbury states that civility and politeness is a consequence of liberty by which “we polish one another, and rub off our Corners and rough Sides” (1709)

Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury

Presidents, Kings, Tyrants, & Despots

Thomas Gordon compares the Greatness of Spartacus with that of Julius Caesar (1721)

Thomas Gordon

The State

Thomas Gordon on the nature of power to expand (1721)

Thomas Gordon

Presidents, Kings, Tyrants, & Despots

Thomas Jefferson opposed vehemently the Alien and Sedition Laws of 1798 which granted the President enormous powers showing that the government had become a tyranny which desired to govern with "a rod of iron" (1798)

Thomas Jefferson

Politics & Liberty

Tocqueville on centralization as the natural form of government for democracies (1835)

Alexis de Tocqueville

Presidents, Kings, Tyrants, & Despots

Tocqueville on the “New Despotism” (1837)

Alexis de Tocqueville

The State

Tocqueville on the absence of government in America (1835)

Alexis de Tocqueville

The State

Tocqueville warns how administrative despotism might come to a democracy like America (1840)

Alexis de Tocqueville

Religion & Toleration

William Findley wants to maintain the separation of church and state and therefore sees no role for the “ecclesiastical branch” in government (1812)

William Findley

Religion & Toleration

William Leggett argues that Thanksgiving Day is no business of the government (1836)

William Leggett

Origin of Government

William Paley dismisses as a fiction the idea that there ever was a binding contract by which citizens consented to be ruled by their government (1785)

William Paley

Property Rights

William Paley on the tragedy of the commons (1785)

William Paley

Property Rights

William Penn on property as one of the three fundamental rights all men have (1679)

William Penn