History of the Austrian School of Economics

A review of a book review is hardly standard procedure, but Backhouse's article is a major scholarly assessment of Rothbard's History. 

I closed Karen Vaughn's Austrian Economics in America with a sense of disappointment. In several ways, as it seems to me, it fundamentally misconceives its topic.

Murray Rothbard tells us that this gigantic work was first envisioned as a "standard Adam Smith-to-the-present moderately sized book, a sort of contra-[Robert] Heilbroner" .

The period between the World Wars was a golden age for the Austrian School of economics. Led by Ludwig von Mises, a group of scholars writing in the tradition of Carl Menger broke new ground in economic science. Their studies showed the superiority of free markets and sound money over all forms of government control. A top theorist in that Mises Circle of thinkers was Gottfried Haberler, who died in Washington, D.C., at the age of 94 on May 6, 1995.

For more than seven decades, Henry Hazlitt has taught the economics of freedom. With pathbreaking theoretical work and a unique ability to communicate with the non-economist—shown forth especially in his Economics in One Lesson—he has both advanced Austrian economics and made it accessible to everyone.

There are other worthy contenders, but three men stand out as great economists and freedom fighters in the Misesian tradition: Henry Hazlitt, W.H. Hutt, and Murray N. Rothbard.

I look back with special pleasure and deep respect on that giant of our age, Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973). How he shone in his students' lives and minds, gently schooling us in the meaning of human action and the free market. 

A tribute to Ludwig von Mises written by George Reisman on the 100th anniversary of Mises's birth.

A tribute to Ludwig von Mises by William H. Peterson.

A tribute to Ludwig von Mises by John V. Van Sickle.