Book picks similar to
Commentaries on the Laws of England: All Books by William Blackstone
law
politics
philosophy
constitutional-law
The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution
Christopher Hill - 1972
Its success "might have established communal property, a far wider democracy in political and legal institutions, might have disestablished the state church and rejected the protestant ethic." In The World Turned Upside Down, Christopher Hill studies the beliefs of such radical groups as the Diggers, the Ranters, the Levellers and others, and the social and emotional impulses that gave rise to them. The relations between rich and poor classes, the part played by wandering 'masterless men,' the outbursts of sexual freedom and deliberate blasphemy, the great imaginative creations of Milton and Bunyan - these and many other elements build up into a marvellously detailed and coherent portrait of this strange, sudden effusion of revolutionary beliefs. It is a portrait not of the bourgeois revolution that actually took place, but of the impulse towards a far more fundamental overturning of society."Incorporates some of Dr. Hill's most profound statements yet about the 17th-century revolution as a whole." -- The Economist
The Path of the Law (Little Books of Wisdom)
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. - 1897
The perfect gift for anyone who ever entered law school, it defines the responsibilities of the legal profession from one of law's greatest practitioners.
Cato: A Tragedy, and Selected Essays
Joseph Addison - 1712
He was educated in the classics at Oxford and became widely known as an essayist, playwright, poet, and statesman. 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 essays that develop key themes in the play.Cato, A Tragedy is the account of the final hours of Marcus Porcius Cato (95–46 B.C.), a Stoic whose deeds, rhetoric, and resistance to the tyranny of Caesar made him an icon of republicanism, virtue, and liberty. By all accounts, Cato was an uncompromisingly principled man, deeply committed to liberty. He opposed Caesar’s tyrannical assertion of power and took arms against him. As Caesar’s forces closed in on Cato, he chose to take his life, preferring death by his own hand to a life of submission to Caesar.Addison’s theatrical depiction of Cato enlivened the glorious image of a citizen ready to sacrifice everything in the cause of freedom, and it influenced friends of liberty on both sides of the Atlantic. Captain Nathan Hale’s last words before being hanged were, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” a close paraphrase of Addison’s “What pity is it that we can die but once to serve our country!” George Washington found Cato such a powerful statement of liberty, honor, virtue, and patriotism that he had it performed for his men at Valley Forge. And Forrest McDonald says in his Foreword that “Patrick Henry adapted his famous ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ speech directly from lines in Cato.”Despite Cato’s enormous success, Addison was perhaps best-known as an essayist. In periodicals like the Spectator, Guardian, Tatler, and Freeholder, he sought to educate England’s developing middle class in the habits, morals, and manners he believed necessary for the preservation of a free society. Addison’s work in these periodicals helped to define the modern English essay form. Samuel Johnson said of his writing, “Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the study of Addison.”Christine Dunn Henderson is a Senior Fellow at Liberty Fund. Prior to joining Liberty Fund in 2000, she was assistant professor of political science at Marshall University.Mark E. Yellin, also a Fellow at Liberty Fund, received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University, has taught at North Carolina State University, and edited Douglass Adair’s Intellectual Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy.Click here for a pdf of the Cato: A Tragedy brochure
Utopia
Thomas More
The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society as described by the character Raphael Hythloday who lived there some years, who describes and its religious, social and political customs.
Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark
Mary Wollstonecraft - 1795
Her scenic descriptions and political comments about Norway and her encounters with an impoverished peasantry and Danish townsfolk greedily obsessed by commerce are no less vivid than the outbursts of melancholy in these letters written to Gilbert Imlay, her unfaithful lover and father of her baby. This book attracted William Godwin to its author, who was soon to become his wife and the mother of Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein, making this a key work for the understanding of the Godwin-Shelley circle. This new edition is enriched by a new introduction by Sylva Norman, which puts Wollstonecraft's letters into their political and social context and provides enlightening information about Mary's life, loves, and deeply held convictions.
Essays: Moral, Political and Literary
David Hume - 1758
It also includes ten essays that were withdrawn or left unpublished by Hume for various reasons.Eugene F. Miller was Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia from 1967 until his retirement in 2003.Please note: This title is available as an ebook for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes.
The Road to Serfdom
Friedrich A. Hayek - 1944
Originally published in England in the spring of 1944—when Eleanor Roosevelt supported the efforts of Stalin, and Albert Einstein subscribed lock, stock, and barrel to the socialist program—The Road to Serfdom was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production. For F. A. Hayek, the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would inevitably lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of nazi Germany and fascist Italy.First published by the University of Chicago Press on September 18, 1944, The Road to Serfdom garnered immediate attention from the public, politicians, and scholars alike. The first printing of 2,000 copies was exhausted instantly, and within six months more than 30,000 were sold. In April of 1945, Reader's Digest published a condensed version of the book, and soon thereafter the Book-of-the-Month Club distributed this condensation to more than 600,000 readers. A perennial best-seller, the book has sold over a quarter of a million copies in the United States, not including the British edition or the nearly twenty translations into such languages as German, French, Dutch, Swedish, and Japanese, and not to mention the many underground editions produced in Eastern Europe before the fall of the iron curtain.After thirty-two printings in the United States, The Road to Serfdom has established itself alongside the works of Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and George Orwell for its timeless meditation on the relation between individual liberty and government authority. This fiftieth anniversary edition, with a new introduction by Milton Friedman, commemorates the enduring influence of The Road to Serfdom on the ever-changing political and social climates of the twentieth century, from the rise of socialism after World War II to the Reagan and Thatcher "revolutions" in the 1980s and the transitions in Eastern Europe from communism to capitalism in the 1990s.F. A. Hayek (1899-1992), recipient of the Medal of Freedom in 1991 and co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1974, was a pioneer in monetary theory and the principal proponent of libertarianism in the twentieth century.On the first American edition of The Road to Serfdom:"One of the most important books of our generation. . . . It restates for our time the issue between liberty and authority with the power and rigor of reasoning with which John Stuart Mill stated the issue for his own generation in his great essay On Liberty. . . . It is an arresting call to all well-intentioned planners and socialists, to all those who are sincere democrats and liberals at heart to stop, look and listen."—Henry Hazlitt, New York Times Book Review, September 1944"In the negative part of Professor Hayek's thesis there is a great deal of truth. It cannot be said too often—at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough—that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamt of."—George Orwell, Collected Essays
Liberty in the Age of Terror: A Defence of Civil Liberties and Enlightenment Values
A.C. Grayling - 2009
Starting a war 'to promote freedom and democracy' could in certain though rare circumstances be a justified act; but in the case of the Second Gulf War that began in 2003, which involved reacting to criminals hiding in one country (Al Qaeda in Afghanistan or Pakistan) by invading another country (Iraq), one of the main fronts has, dismayingly, been the home front, where the War on Terror takes the form of a War on Civil Liberties in the spurious name of security. To defend 'freedom and democracy', Western governments attack and diminish freedom and democracy in their own country. By this logic, someone will eventually have to invade the US and UK to restore freedom and democracy to them.'In this lucid and timely book, Grayling sets out what's at risk, engages with the arguments for and against examining the cases made by Isaiah Berlin and Ronald Dworkin on the one hand, and Roger Scruton and John Gray on the other, and finally proposes a different way to respond that makes defending the civil liberties on which western society is founded the cornerstone for defeating terrorism.
The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius
George Orwell - 1941
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion...)Part I: England Your EnglandPart II: Shopkeepers at WarPart III: The English Revolution
Sharia Law for Non-Muslims
Bill Warner - 2010
Sharia law is based on entirely different principles than our laws. Many of these laws concern the non-Muslim.What does Sharia law mean for the citizens of this state? How will this affect us? What are the long-term effects of granting Muslims the right to be ruled by Sharia, instead of our laws? Each and every demand that Muslims make is based on the idea of implementing Sharia law in America. Should we allow any Sharia at all? Why? Why not?How can any political or legal authority make decisions about Sharia law if they do not know what it is? Is this moral?The answers to all of these questions are found in this book.
The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law
Antonin Scalia - 2020
The Essential Scalia presents Justice Scalia on his own terms, allowing readers to understand the reasoning and insights that made him one of the most consequential jurists in American history. Known for his forceful intellect and remarkable wit, Scalia mastered the art of writing in a way that both educated and entertained. This comprehensive collection draws from the best of Scalia’s opinions, essays, speeches, and testimony to paint a complete and nuanced portrait of his jurisprudence. This compendium addresses the hot-button issues of the times, from abortion and the right to bear arms to marriage, free speech, religious liberty, and so much more. It also presents the justice’s wise insights on perennial debates over the structure of government created by our Constitution and the proper methods for interpreting our laws. Brilliant and passionately argued, The Essential Scalia is an indispensable resource for anyone who wants to understand our Constitution, the American legal system, and one of our nation’s most influential and highly regarded jurists and thinkers.
Who Gets What: Fair Compensation after Tragedy and Financial Upheaval
Kenneth R. Feinberg - 2012
What they had in common was their aftermath -- each required compensation for lives lost, bodies maimed, livelihoods wrecked, economies and ecosystems upended. In each instance, an objective third party had to step up and dole out allocated funds: in each instance, Presidents, Attorneys General, and other public officials have asked Kenneth R. Feinberg to get the job done. In Who Gets What?, Feinberg reveals the deep thought that must go into each decision, not to mention the most important question that arises after a tragedy: why compensate at all? The result is a remarkably accessible discussion of the practical and philosophical problems of using money as a way to address wrongs and reflect individual worth.
Tolerance
Hendrik Willem van Loon - 1925
The history of Tolerance (or the lack thereof) in the history of man as described by one of the best popular historians of all time
The Right to Be Lazy
Paul Lafargue - 1880
It was not only extremely popular but also brought about pragmatic results, inspiring the movement for the eight-hour day and equal pay for men and women who perform equal work. It survives as one of the very few pieces of writing to come out of the international socialist movement of the nineteenth century that is not only readable-even enjoyable-but pertinent. This new translation by Len Bracken, fuller than previous versions in English, is supplemented by Lafargue's little-known talk on The Intellectuals.
The Lessons of History
Will Durant - 1968
With the completion of their life's work they look back and ask what history has to say about the nature, the conduct and the prospects of man, seeking in the great lives, the great ideas, the great events of the past for the meaning of man's long journey through war, conquest and creation - and for the great themes that can help us to understand our own era.To the Durants, history is "not merely a warning reminder of man's follies and crimes, but also an encouraging remembrance of generative souls ... a spacious country of the mind wherein a thousand saints, statesman, inventors, scientists, poets, artists, musicians, lovers, and philosophers still live and speak, teach and carve and sing..."Designed to accompany the ten-volume set of "The Story of Civilization, The Lessons of History" is, in its own right, a profound and original work of history and philosophy.