Book Reviews

New Deal Charades

by George Leef January 1, 2010

New Deal or Raw Deal? by Burton Folsom Jr. (Threshold Editions, 2008); 318 pages. The New Deal rescued the United States from the terrible depression caused by the instability of our capitalist economy. Thats the standard line peddled to gullible Americans by most history books, historians, and politicians. It was not surprising when Republican Speaker of the House Newt ...

Government Caused the Meltdown

by George Leef December 1, 2009

Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse by Thomas E. Woods (Regnery, 2009); 194 pages. Thomas Woodss Meltdown is a truly radical book. That is to say, it probes to the root ...

A Prudent Foreign Policy

by Doug Bandow August 1, 2009

Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for America by Ted Galen Carpenter (Cato Institute, 2008); 352 pages. Change has come to Washington in the form of a new administration. Yet the cast of characters looks much the same. Their philosophies, while differing in degree, remain solidly interventionist. The question ...

Robbery and the Welfare State

by George Leef July 1, 2009

Stealing from Each Other: How the Welfare State Robs Americans of Money and Spirit by Edgar K. Browning (Praeger, 2008); 226 pages. In the Sherlock Holmes story “Silver Blaze,” the key to Holmes’s solution of the case rested on something that didn’t happen — the dog that didn’t bark in ...

Hamilton’s Betrayal

by George Leef June 1, 2009

Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution — and What It Means for America Today by Thomas J. DiLorenzo (Crown Forum 2008); 232 pages. There is a tendency among Americans to think of the nation’s Founders as a group of wealthy white men who owned property, didn’t like ...

A Free Market in Labor

by George Leef May 1, 2009

Labor Economics from a Free Market Perspective: Employing the Unemployable by Walter Block (World Scientific, 2008); 393 pages. The first time I ever heard of Walter Block was in 1980, when a faculty colleague showed me his copy of Block’s book Defending the Undefendable. Knowing of my anarcho-capitalist views, my colleague said ...

America’s Anti-Militarist Heritage

by George Leef January 1, 2009

Ain’t My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism by Bill Kauffman (Metropolitan Books, 2008); 284 pages, $25. Americans don’t have much historical memory anymore. That isn’t just because of the dumbing down of the educational system and the fact that most young people read very ...

The Crusade Against Population

by George Leef December 1, 2008

Population Control: Real Costs, Illusory Benefits by Steven W. Mosher (Transaction Publishers, 2008); 300 pages. You have probably never heard of Dr. Reimert Ravenholt, but he was one of the most influential people of the 20th century. More than anyone else, Ravenholt was responsible for putting together the worldwide network ...

Fair-Housing Fascism

by George Leef November 1, 2008

In his recent book, Liberal Fascism, Jonah Goldberg argues that most of the liberal political agenda is fascistic, in the true meaning of the word. Fascism is a system based on the use of governmental directives to control private property. Whereas communists simply confiscate private property particularly what they call the means of production fascists ...

A Revolutionary Manifesto

by Anthony Gregory October 1, 2008

The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2008); 173 pages. Ron Paul’s grassroots campaign — a decentralized undertaking that always had much more to do with the principles of the American Revolution, liberty, free enterprise, and peace than with narrowly defined electoral success — has ...

Sacrificing Liberty for Safety

by George Leef September 1, 2008

Neither Liberty Nor Safety by Robert Higgs (Independent Institute, 2007); 202 pages. Many readers will immediately recognize that the title of this book comes from one of Benjamin Franklin’s many political insights: “Those who would sacrifice essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Author ...

The Cult of Executive Power

by George Leef July 1, 2008

The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power by Gene Healy (Cato Institute, 2008); 356 pages. Just in time for the 2008 presidential campaign comes the book we need to get Americans to think sensibly about the office that the candidates are so furiously seeking.