Online Library of Liberty

A collection of scholarly works about individual liberty and free markets. A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

Classics of Liberty

The following texts have been selected for being among the most important and influential books in the development of the idea of individual liberty, limited government, and the free market. Each author is represented by only one title in order to have as broad a range of authors as possible. Clicking on the author’s name will take you to that author’s bio page where additional works by that author are listed.

37 Titles

Areopagitica (1644) (Jebb ed.) (John Milton)
Capital and Interest: A Critical History of Economic Theory (Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk)
Cato’s Letters, 4 vols. in 2 (LF ed.) (John Trenchard)
Complete Works, 4 vols. (1777) (Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu)
Complete Works, vol. 1 The Spirit of Laws (Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu)
Discourses Concerning Government (Algernon Sidney)
Economic Harmonies (FEE ed.) (Frédéric Bastiat)
An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. I. (William Godwin)
An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. II. (William Godwin)
An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Adam Ferguson)
Essays Moral, Political, Literary (LF ed.) (David Hume)
The Federalist (Gideon ed.) (George W. Carey)
The History of Freedom and Other Essays (John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton)
Magna Carta: A Commentary (William Sharp McKechnie)
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (Thomas Hodgskin)
On Liberty and The Subjection of Women (1879 ed.) (John Stuart Mill)
Treatise on the Commonwealth (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Kant’s Principles of Politics, including his essay on Perpetual Peace (Immanuel Kant)
The Rights of War and Peace (2005 ed.) 3 vols (Hugo Grotius)
The Rights of War and Peace (2005 ed.) vol. 1 (Book I) (Hugo Grotius)
The Rights of War and Peace (2005 ed.) vol. 3 (Book III) (Hugo Grotius)
Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 2 (Edmund Burke)
Selected Writings of Sir Edward Coke, vol. II (Sir Edward Coke)
Social Statics (1851) (Herbert Spencer)
Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (Ludwig von Mises)
The Society of Tomorrow (Gustave de Molinari)
Speeches on Questions of Public Policy. Vol. 2 War, Peace, and Reform (Richard Cobden)
The Sphere and Duties of Government (1792, 1854) (Wilhelm von Humboldt)
The State (Anthony de Jasay)
A Treatise on Political Economy (Jean Baptiste Say)
The Two Treatises of Civil Government (Hollis ed.) (John Locke)
Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun (John C. Calhoun)
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Mary Wollstonecraft)
The Works, vol. 2 (1771-1779) (Thomas Jefferson)
The Works of Voltaire, Vol. I (Candide) (Voltaire)
The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 1 Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (David Ricardo)
The Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. II (1779-1792) (Thomas Paine)

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