Recognizing Brilliance Mises Review 2, No. 3 (Fall 1996) “REVIEW OF ROTHBARD” Roger Backhouse History of Economic Thought Newsletter 56 (Summer 1996): 16–21 A review of a book review is hardly standard procedure, but Backhouse’s article is a major scholarly assessment of Rothbard’s History. Backhouse, an eminent historian of economic thought,
Gray Areas Mises Review 3, No. 3 (Fall 1997) ENDGAMES: QUESTIONS IN LATE MODERN POLITICAL THOUGHT John Gray Polity Press, 1997, xii + 212 pgs. John Gray is a hard man to pin down. Just when you think you have understood his position, he declares inadequate what he has advocated only moments before. Endgames thus marks a definite stage forward in
An Economist Scorned Mises Review 3, No. 3 (Fall 1997) THE VICES OF ECONOMISTS — THE VIRTUES OF THE BOURGEOISIE Deirdre N. McCloskey Amsterdam University Press, 1996, 135 pgs. Let me set readers’ minds at ease. As most people will have heard, our distinguished author has recently found the gender in which he was born overly confining. Donald
All in the Family? Mises Review 3, No. 3 (Fall 1997) MARX, HAYEK, AND UTOPIA Chris Matthew Sciabarra SUNY Press, 1995. x + 178 pgs. Within Marx, Hayek, and Utopia lies a very good book struggling to escape. Chris Sciabarra has asked a penetrating question and brought to light important material in his pursuit of an answer to it. Unfortunately, he
Wither’d Garland of War Mises Review 3, No. 3 (Fall 1997) THE COSTS OF WAR: AMERICA’S PYRRHIC VICTORIES John V. Denson, Editor Transaction Publishers, 1997, viii + 450 pgs. The contributors to this outstanding volume have grasped a simple but unfashionable truth: war is a great evil. It entails horrible suffering and death on a large scale and has
Whose Style? Which America? Mises Review 3, No. 3 (Fall 1997) ASSIMILATION, AMERICAN STYLE Peter D. Salins Basic Books, 1997, xi + 259 pgs. Peter Salins, Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College, has good news. Americans need no longer worry about immigration, so long as a simple and straightforward plan is adopted: all immigrants
No Contest Mises Review 3, No. 3 (Fall 1997) PERFECT COMPETITION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF ECONOMICS Frank M. Machovec Routledge, 1995, xi + 391 pgs. Doctoral dissertations seldom make good books. Even the most trivial assertion in a thesis must be footnoted; and the author, much to the reader’s discomfort, must demonstrate his control of his
Cheap Shot Mises Review 3, No. 3 (Fall 1997) “UNSOUND CONSTITUTION” George P. Fletcher The New Republic (June 23, 1997): 14–18 George P. Fletcher, Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence at Columbia Law School, thinks that the Timothy McVeigh trial teaches us an important lesson about the Constitution. Many Americans, particularly those on the “radical
In Defense of Secession Mises Review 3, No. 1 (Spring 1997) GETTING IT RIGHT: MARKETS AND CHOICES Robert J. Barro MIT Press, 1996, xv + 191 pgs. If one passage in Robert Barro’s excellent book attracts notice in the wrong quarters, he is liable to find himself in serious trouble. Our author, a free-market supporter in the inhospitable climate of
Time on Their Hands Mises Review 3, No. 1 (Spring 1997) THE ECONOMICS OF TIME AND IGNORANCE Gerald P. O’Driscoll, Jr., and Mario J. Rizzo Routledge, 1996 [1985], xxxiii + 265 pgs. For once a publisher’s blurb does not exaggerate. The Economics of Time and Ignorance has indeed been “one of the seminal works in modern Austrian economics” and the
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The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.