Libertarianism: A Primer


David Boaz - 1997
    In 1995 a Gallup poll found that 52 percent of Americans said "the federal government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens." Later that year, The Wall Street Journal concurred, saying: "Because of their growing disdain for government, more and more Americans appear to be drifting—often unwittingly—toward a libertarian philosophy." Libertarianism is hardly new, but its framework for liberty under law and economic progress makes it especially suited for the dynamic new era we are now entering. In the United States, the bureaucratic leviathan is newly threatened by a resurgence of the libertarian ideas upon which the country was founded. We are witnessing a breakdown of all the cherished beliefs of the welfare-warfare state. Americans have seen the failure of big government. Now, in the 1990s, we are ready to apply the lessons of this century to make the next one the century not of the state but of the free individual. David Boaz presents the essential guidebook to the libertarian perspective, detailing its roots, central tenets, solutions to contemporary policy dilemmas, and future in American politics. He confronts head-on the tough questions frequently posed to libertarians: What about inequality? Who protects the environment? What ties people together if they are essentially self-interested? A concluding section, "Are You a Libertarian?" gives readers a chance to explore the substance of their own beliefs. Libertarianism is must reading for understanding one of the most exciting and hopeful movements of our time.

Capitalism and Freedom


Milton Friedman - 1962
    The result is an accessible text that has sold well over half a million copies in English, has been translated into eighteen languages, and shows every sign of becoming more and more influential as time goes on.

There Is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters


Claire Berlinski - 2008
    Three decades later, it is the richest and most influential country in Europe, and Margaret Thatcher is the reason. The preternaturally determined Thatcher rose from nothing, seized control of Britain’s Conservative party, and took a sledgehammer to the nation’s postwar socialist consensus. She proved that socialism could be reversed, inspiring a global free-market revolution. Simultaneously exploiting every politically useful aspect of her femininity and defying every conventional expectation of women in power, Thatcher crushed her enemies with a calculated ruthlessness that stunned the British public and without doubt caused immense collateral damage. Ultimately, however, Claire Berlinski agrees with Thatcher: There was no alternative. Berlinski explains what Thatcher did, why it matters, and how she got away with it in this vivid and immensely readable portrait of one of the towering figures of the twentieth century.

The Last Best League: One Summer, One Season, One Dream


Jim Collins - 2004
    Set against the backdrop of a resort town on the bend of the outer Cape, the story charts the changing fortunes of a handful ?of players battling slumps and self-doubt in their effort to make the league playoffs and, more importantly, impress the major league scouts.We learn about everything from the physics of wooden bats and the physiology of elbows to the psychology of slumps and the lure of drugs. In the course of a single dramatic season, with euphoric wins and devastating losses, we come to know the intricacies of the major league scouting network and the rapidly changing profile of major league baseball.In the tradition of The Boys of Summer, The Last Best League is about dreams fulfilled and dreams denied, about Cape Cod and the rites of summer, and about the way one small town grows to love a group of young men coming of age in America.

The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money


Bryan Caplan - 2018
    In this explosive book, Bryan Caplan argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skill but to certify their intelligence, work ethic, and conformity—in other words, to signal the qualities of a good employee. Learn why students hunt for easy As and casually forget most of what they learn after the final exam, why decades of growing access to education have not resulted in better jobs for the average worker but instead in runaway credential inflation, how employers reward workers for costly schooling they rarely if ever use, and why cutting education spending is the best remedy.Caplan draws on the latest social science to show how the labor market values grades over knowledge, and why the more education your rivals have, the more you need to impress employers. He explains why graduation is our society's top conformity signal, and why even the most useless degrees can certify employability. He advocates two major policy responses. The first is educational austerity. Government needs to sharply cut education funding to curb this wasteful rat race. The second is more vocational education, because practical skills are more socially valuable than teaching students how to outshine their peers.Romantic notions about education being "good for the soul" must yield to careful research and common sense — The Case against Education points the way.

The Anarchist Handbook


Michael MaliceEmma Goldman - 2021
    Since the term itself—anarchism—is a negation, there is a great deal of disagreement on what the positive alternative would look like. The black flag comes in many colors.The Anarchist Handbook is an opportunity for all these many varied voices to speak for themselves, from across the decades. These were human beings who saw things differently from their fellow men. They fought and they loved. They lived and they died. They disagreed on much, but they all shared one vision: Freedom.

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning


Jonah Goldberg - 2007
    Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst? Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism. Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term -National socialism-). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities--where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist. Do these striking parallels mean that today's liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal. Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a -friendlier, - more liberal form. The modern heirs of this -friendly fascist- tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore. These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning of Liberal Fascism.

Sixty Feet, Six Inches: A Hall of Fame Pitcher & a Hall of Fame Hitter Talk about How the Game Is Played


Bob Gibson - 2009
    Insightful. Uncompromising. Candid. Uncensored. Mr. October and Hoot Gibson unfortunately never faced each other on the field. But now, in Sixty Feet, Six Inches, these two legends open up in fascinating detail about the game they love and how it was, is, and should be played. Their one-of-a-kind insider stories recall a who's who of baseball nobility, including Willie Mays, Alex Rodriguez, Hank Aaron, Albert Pujols, Billy Martin, and Joe Torre. This is an unforgettable baseball history by two of its most influential superstars.

Holy Toledo: Lessons From Bill King, Renaissance Man of the Mic


Ken Korach - 2013
    Bill was also one of the most influential broadcasters of all time, an inspiration to legions of his fellow broadcasters who looked up to him. No less an authority than John Madden tells Ken Korach in this 80,000-word testament to Bill’s uniqueness that when he turned from coaching to broadcasting, no one was more of an influence on him than Bill. But this was true of Bill the man as well, not merely Bill the broadcaster. “We all wanted to live vicariously through Bill. The things that he did, we wished we could do,” Madden tells Ken Korach. Korach, longtime voice of the A’s and Bill’s partner for ten seasons until King’s death in 2005, is the perfect one to bring Bill to life on the page. A half-century ago, Ken Korach was a kid in Los Angeles, spinning the night dial to tune in Warriors basketball games from faraway San Francisco for one reason: He just had to hear Bill. Now, in Holy Toledo – Lessons from Bill King, Renaissance Man of the Mic, he tells the remarkable story of King the legendary baseball, basketball and football broadcaster. Bill was a student of Russian literature, a passionate sailor, a fan of eating anything and everything from gourmet to onions and peanut butter, a remarkable painter. Korach draws on a lifetime of listening to and learning from King – as well as extensive research, including more than fifty interviews with King’s family members, colleagues, friends and associates – to create this rich portrait, eagerly awaited by thousands of fans who have flocked to the Holy Toledo Facebook page and heard about the book through Ken’s media appearances.Holy Toledo features a moving foreword by Hall of Fame broadcaster Jon Miller, previously of ESPN, and a brilliant cover by Mark Ulriksen, internationally recognized for his New Yorker magazine covers, that captures King’s flair and personality.Billy Beane“The best part about Bill wasn’t just that he was so good at his job but that he was so interesting outside of his job. His mustache epitomized that. He looked eccentric and he was eccentric, in a good way.”Bob Welch“If I had a hitter I had trouble with, I’d ask Bill how I should pitch him. He always had a good answer.”Greg Papa“Bill King was the greatest radio broadcaster in the history of the United States.”Tom Meschery“Talking with Bill was like talking with an encyclopedia.… If you wanted to talk sports, literature – when Bill talked you listened, because he always had something interesting to talk about.”Al Attles“He didn’t sugarcoat it. Bill was a departure from the way it was. If a player from the Warriors made a mistake, Bill told it like it was.”Ed Rush“I’d put the radio out the window and keep turning it to certain angles and it would go in and go out. I’d listen to the Warriors and the Raiders. To do all three sports like he did, he was phenomenal. He was out of this world.”Tom Flores“Bill made some of the great plays in the history of the Raiders even greater with his description. Those moments were kept alive in his voice.”Jason Giambi“He was such an incredible man. I had so much fun with him and he would always ask how my family was doing and I have the fondest memories of him. We would talk about life and all the things he had seen. He made me well rounded.”Rick Barry“He had the ability to see a game, a basketball game, and express what was happening in eloquent terms, at times instantaneously. When he was saying something, it was happening.”

In the Hands of the People: Thomas Jefferson on Equality, Faith, Freedom, Compromise, and the Art of Citizenship


Jon Meacham - 2020
    In this illuminating book, a project of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello, the #1 New York Times bestselling author Jon Meacham presents selections from Jefferson's writing on the subject, with an afterword by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed and comments on Jefferson's ideas from others, including Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, Frederick Douglass, Carl Sagan, and American presidents.This curated collection revitalizes how to see an individual's role in the world, as it explores such Jeffersonian concepts as religious freedom, the importance of a free press, public education, participation in government, and others.Meacham writes, "In an hour of twenty-first-century division and partisanship, of declining trust in institutions and of widespread skepticism about the long-term viability of the American experiment, it is instructive to return to first principles. Not, to be sure, as an exercise in nostalgia or as a flight from the reality of our own time, but as an honest effort to see, as Jefferson wrote, what history may be able to tell us about the present and the future."

The Founders' Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms


Stephen P. Halbrook - 2008
    Mr. Halbrook investigates the period from 1768 to 1826, from the last years of British rule and the American Revolution through to the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and the passing of the Founders' generation. His book offers the most comprehensive analysis of the arguments behind the drafting and adoption of the Second Amendment, and the intentions of the men who created it. With the question of the right to bear arms scheduled to come before the Supreme Court in the spring of 2008, The Founders' Second Amendment could scarcely be more timely.

Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine


Glenn Beck - 2009
    They know with conviction what they believe within themselves. They understand that all actions have consequences. And they find commonsense solutions to the nation’s problems. One such American, Thomas Paine, was an ordinary man who changed the course of history by penning Common Sense, the concise 1776 masterpiece in which, through extraordinarily straightforward and indisputable arguments, he encouraged his fellow citizens to take control of America’s future—and, ultimately, her freedom. Nearly two and a half centuries later, those very freedoms once again hang in the balance. And now, Glenn Beck revisits Paine’s powerful treatise with one purpose: to galvanize Americans to see past government’s easy solutions, two-party monopoly, and illogical methods and take back our great country.

Intellectuals and Race


Thomas Sowell - 2013
    The role of intellectuals in racial strife is explored in an international context that puts the American experience in a wholly new light. The views of individual intellectuals have spanned the spectrum, but the views of intellectuals as a whole have tended to cluster. Indeed, these views have clustered at one end of the spectrum in the early twentieth century and then clustered at the opposite end of the spectrum in the late twentieth century. Moreover, these radically different views of race in these two eras were held by intellectuals whose views on other issues were very similar in both eras.Intellectuals and Race is not, however, a book about history, even though it has much historical evidence, as well as demographic, geographic, economic and statistical evidence -- all of it directed toward testing the underlying assumptions about race that have prevailed at times among intellectuals in general, and especially intellectuals at the highest levels. Nor is this simply a theoretical exercise. The impact of intellectuals' ideas and crusades on the larger society, both past and present, is the ultimate concern. These ideas and crusades have ranged widely from racial theories of intelligence to eugenics to "social justice" and multiculturalism. In addition to in-depth examinations of these and other issues, Intellectuals and Race explores the incentives, the visions and the rationales that drive intellectuals at the highest levels to conclusions that have often turned out to be counterproductive and even disastrous, not only for particular racial or ethnic groups, but for societies as a whole.

The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve


G. Edward Griffin - 1994
    Cussed and discussed by all from notable politicians to academicians to laypersons. Do you want to know the truth about money? Creature from Jekyll Island will give you the answers to these, and other, questions: Where does money come from? Where does it go? Who makes it? The money magicians' secrets are unveiled. We get a close look at their mirrors and smoke machines, their pulleys, cogs, and wheels that create the grand illusion called money. A dry and boring subject? Just wait! You'll be hooked in five minutes. Creature from Jekyll Island Reads like a detective story which it really is. But it's all true. This book is about the most blatant scam of all history. It's all here: the cause of wars, boom-bust cycles, inflation, depression, prosperity. Creature from Jekyll Island is a "must read." Your world view will definitely change. You'll never trust a politician again or a banker.

Wake Up America: The Nine Virtues That Made Our Nation Great--and Why We Need Them More Than Ever


Eric Bolling - 2016
    Grit, manliness, individualism, merit, profit and providence, dominion over our environment, thrift, and above all pride in our country—these qualities define us, and are the reason that hundreds of millions of people worldwide look to America for hope, inspiration, and opportunity.But it’s precisely these virtues that now are under attack by the radical Left of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and their followers. America as we know it is eroding before our eyes and becoming what Fox News Channel personality and co-host of “The Five” Eric Bolling calls a “politically correct nanny state.” The rewards for individual achievement and hard work, our basic constitutional rights, religious faith, national identity, and capitalism itself, are being replaced by a dangerous socialistic ideology that is the polar opposite of what our Founding Fathers intended America to be. It’s time for us to wake up and heed the clear-cut warning signs that America is heading in the wrong direction--before we’re too far gone. Eric Bolling knows firsthand what makes America great. Raised in a struggling blue-collar family in Chicago, his parents showed him that hard work and firm values can get you far in life. Those values drove him as a young baseball player to being drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates, then success as a New York Mercantile Exchange trader, and now his daily role on Fox News Channel. A celebration of America that is informed by Bolling’s personal story, Wake Up America is a much-needed call to arms for America’s citizens to preserve and protect our country's present and future.