Book Reviews

The Active Authoritarianism of Teddy Roosevelt

by George Leef March 1, 2007

Bully Boy by Jim Powell (Crown Forum, 2006); 329 pages, $27.50. Most historians rank Teddy Roosevelt as one of America’s great or near-great presidents. That is mainly because he is regarded as a “progressive” — a trustbuster, a proponent of government regulation of the ...

Ripping Off the Taxpayers

by Thomas E. Woods Jr. February 1, 2007

The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money by Timothy P. Carney (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2006); 285 pages; $24.95. Frédéric Bastiat called it legal plunder when the state expropriated one set of property owners for the benefit of another. Whether it loots the workers to benefit the farmers, the farmers to benefit the workers, ...

The Myth of War Prosperity, Part 1

by Anthony Gregory December 1, 2006

Part 1 | Part 2 Depression, War, and Cold War: Studies in Political Economy by Robert Higgs (Oxford University Press: 2006); 240 pages; $35. During the run-up to the Iraq war, along with all the other myths circulating about U.S. foreign policy, economic misconceptions ...

The Federal Ripoff

by George Leef November 1, 2006

The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money by Timothy P. Carney (Wiley, 2006); 285 pages; $24.95. Frédéric Bastiat called it legal plunder — the process by which people and organizations use their political connections to obtain wealth that doesn’t belong to them. When a government ...

Lies and Myths about Opiates

by Randal Cousins October 1, 2006

Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy by Theodore Dalrymple (New York: Encounter Books, 2006); 146 pages; $21.95. This is a hugely important book. If it gets sufficient attention, it could be a major landmark in the ongoing campaign to introduce truth into the honesty-challenged issue of recreational drugs. Although written very much from a conservative point of ...

A Century of Interventionism and Regime Change

by Anthony Gregory September 1, 2006

Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq by Stephen Kinzer (New York: Times Books, 2006); 400 pages; $27.50. Since September 11, the U.S. government has overthrown the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq. Most Americans appear to think of these actions as defensible in principle ...

Piercing through Myths, Lies, and Stupidity

by George Leef August 1, 2006

Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity by John Stossel (Hyperion 2006); 304 pages; $24.95. John Stossel, anchor of the ABC News program 20/20, is a rarity among the ranks of American media personalities. He’s a skeptic when it comes to everything except freedom. He even calls himself a libertarian. Over the years, ...

For and Against Libertarianism: A Debate, Part 2

by George Leef June 1, 2006

Part 1 | Part 2 Libertarianism: For and Against by Craig Duncan and Tibor Machan (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005); 167 pages. In the second part of Libertarianism: For and Against, Duncan goes first, presenting his main case, which he calls “Democratic Liberalism: The Politics of Dignity.” Here, he fleshes out the “dignity” ...

For and Against Libertarianism: A Debate, Part 1

by George Leef May 1, 2006

Part 1 | Part 2 Libertarianism: For and Against by Craig Duncan and Tibor Machan (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005); 167 pages. What is a debate? Most of the “debate” that contemporary Americans see consists of the pathetic events featuring political candidates on the same stage, frantically trading sound bites calculated to ...

Book Review: Attention Deficit Democracy

by Anthony Gregory April 3, 2006

Attention Deficit Democracy by James Bovard (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 291 pages. “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” So says a popular bumper sticker. Indeed, those of us who have been paying attention to the political scene for years ...

American Democracy Indicted

by Anthony Gregory April 1, 2006

Attention Deficit Democracy by James Bovard (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 291 pages. “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” So says a popular bumper sticker. Indeed, those of us who have been paying attention to the political scene for ...

Book Review: Attention Deficit Democracy

by George Leef March 22, 2006

Attention Deficit Democracy by James Bovard (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); 288 pages; $26.95. One of Winston Churchill’s most famous quips is that democracy is the worst form of government — except for all the others. The supposition behind the “except” clause is that ...