Dr. Felix Morley, educator, scholar and author, has been a staunch defender of federalism, limited government, and Jeffersonian Republicanism throughout his long and distinguished career. As editor of the Washington Post, he received a Pulitzer Prize for his writing. He became President of Haverford College in 1940, and during World War II he
This paper will present a radical libertarian analysis of the War of 1861-65; as such, it will disagree in many ways with existing interpretations. It will be frankly evaluative in libertarian terms and will not assume that things “had to” turn out just exactly as they did ( pace the Locomotive of History). The discussion will be no more
You will probably never see Ralph Raico, professor emeritus of history at Buffalo State College, holding forth on the History Channel surrounded by wide-eyed naïfs eager to improve their mastery of American Establishment gospel. His new book, Great Wars and Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2010)
I. Background Joseph Schumpeter wrote that “capitalist society was on its way to creating a new civilization all its own when it was overtaken by the meaningless catastrophe of 1914-18, which put its world out of gear.” The Treaty of Versailles held Germany guilty of plotting war. Some historians disagree and let Serbia, Russia, France, and
Ah, the Cold War, that heroic exercise in U.S. global philanthropy and unrelieved humanitarianism! In the end, however, we may find that it brings to mind Ozymandias, Pyrrhus, and other associations inconsistent with the prevailing mood of triumph. We may find that the Cold War perfected the witch’s brew of retail Puritanism, centralism,
I. Introduction: Why Praise Unfamous Men? My title raises the question of why we take an interest in individuals of whom few have ever heard. One reason is that the victors write the history--both of domestic politics and foreign policy. Their Court historians seldom dwell on those who opposed intervention and war, if only because such
On the relationship between war and heightened statism, let us now look at things from the standpoint of Martin van Creveld’s The Rise and Decline of the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Van Creveld, a military historian who teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, seeks to come to grips with the inner logic of the
Professor Michael Bellesiles has made a big splash with his claim that the Second Amendment was never more than a sop to deluded republican theorists, who in the face of overwhelming “evidence” thought that an armed people was the proper basis for the defense of a free society. But, alas, for those poor romantics, there were virtually no guns in
A Review of Forrest McDonald, States Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776-1876 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2000) It is not at all surprising to have another outstanding book from the pen of Forrest McDonald, a distinguished historian of the Early Republic presently teaching at the University of Alabama. Nor is the
What is the Mises Institute?
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.
