The Reading Room

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

The French Revolution on America’s Mind Part I

By: Walter Donway

“…the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1789 and the dictatorship of the Committee of Public Safety of the Year II (1793–94) represent principles and values debated passionately today. From China to Central Europe, they are the headline makers.”
 --Nancy Nichols Barker, professor of history, UT Austin 
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For Each and For All: Martineau’s Moral and Economic Defense of Free Markets

By: Caroline Breashears

Was Henry Hazlitt right in his defense of capitalism as "the system of freedom, of justice, of productivity," a system in which people are "free to choose. . . free to get and to keep the fruits of their labor" because they…
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Mrs. Dalloway: Only Authors Get to Understand People

By: Winston Tingle

Can you ever know another person? There is an optimistic dogma that even though we struggle to understand each other, it is possible, with effort, to bridge the gap.
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7 Reasons Why AI Isn’t As Game-changing As You Fear

By: Carlos Alejandro Noyola Contreras

Artificial intelligence is changing some things and challenging our ideas about others.
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Unlocking the Mystery of the Beauty that Launched a Thousand Ships

By: Anna Leman

Homer’s Iliad relates gruesome details of the horrific war between the Achaians and the Trojans over the beautiful Helen of Sparta. The question in every reader’s mind: How could the beauty of one woman inspire such devastation? How…
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Purge Your Enthusiasm: The Life-Changing Legacy of America’s Greatest Post-Seinfeld Comedy Series

By: Daniel Ross Goodman

Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David’s hilarious and highly admired follow-up to Seinfeld, has wrapped up its twelfth and final season. Throughout this last season of what has perhaps been the greatest American comedy series since…
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Herbert Spencer, Slavery & Income Tax

By: Charles Amos

In Anarchy, State and Utopia, Robert Nozick recounted ‘The Tale of The Slave’ the theme of which is that income taxation is slavery. For a long time, I thought this was Nozick’s own idea; but upon visiting the footnotes it turns out…
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James Baldwin Shows We Have More to Learn About Liberty for All

By: Sabine El-Chidiac

James Baldwin was one of the greatest American writers, a civil rights activist, and someone who stood up for Black liberty. He was not a libertarian, but those interested in liberty should take heed of his words and the way he…
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Charles Murray on Dignity and the American Dream

By: Anna Leman

Mitch Daniels sings nothing but high praise of Charles Murray, for the social scientist says what no one else will. In this Future of Liberty episode, Daniels and Murray discuss some of Murray’s boldest claims about social welfare,…
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Self-Help with Smiles

By: Caroline Breashears

While self-help books have been around for millennia, the popularity of the genre owes a great deal to Samuel Smiles's Self-Help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct. 
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Reading is, and should always be, a pleasure

By: Carlos Alejandro Noyola Contreras

I buy books. Lots of them. Lots of books. For years, if I remember correctly, I haven't spent a week without adding - at least - a new book to my library.
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Marlowe, Goethe, and the Faust Legend

By: Gary McGath

The Faust legend has held the imagination of Western culture for many years. Variants of the story have appeared as stage works, poems, novels, and even instrumental music. The man who makes a deal with the Devil sometimes achieves…
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Why You Should Read Adam Smith

By: Amy Willis

Our friends at the University of Louisville's McConnell Center launched an interesting program this year in which they are asking authors and experts to tell us why WE should read the books that helped shape them or those that have…
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The Reading Room Archives

Reading Room Contributors

Walter Donway

Walter Donway

Caroline Breashears

Caroline Breashears

Winston Tingle

Winston Tingle

Carlos Alejandro Noyola Contreras

Carlos Alejandro Noyola Contreras

Anna Leman

Anna Leman