Book Reviews

Book Review: Free-Market Feminism

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 1998

Free-Market Feminism by David Conway (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1998); 96 pages; £7.00. The Soviet Union may be gone, but the Marxian mindset still dominates the intellectual climate of the world. Many of the fashionable fads of our time are merely variations on Marx's conception of class conflict. The residues of socialism also still dominate the general understanding ...

Book Review: Collected Works of Edwin Cannan

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 1998

Collected Works of Edwin Cannan in 8 volumes, edited by Alan Ebenstein (London/New York: Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1998); $900. In 1951, Austrian economist Friedrich A. Hayek wrote an essay entitled "The Transmission of the Ideals of Economic Freedom." He pointed out, "At the end of the First World War the spiritual tradition of liberalism was all but dead." But, Hayek ...

Book Review: Money and the Nation State

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 1998

Money and the Nation State edited by Kevin Dowd and Richard H. Timberlake Jr. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1998); 453 pages; $24.95. For the entire 20th century, governments have fought a world war against gold as an international monetary standard. In its place, governments have imposed a system of monetary nationalism, with each government controlling and managing its own ...

Book Review: Central Banking in Theory and Practice

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 1998

Central Banking in Theory and Practice by Alan S. Blinder (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1998); 92 pages; $20. In one of the most insightful passages in The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith argued: "The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capital, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary ...

Book Review: J.B. Say

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 1998

J.B. Say: An Economist in Troubled Times writings translated and selected by R.R. Palmer (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997); 164 pages; $39.95. Whatever economic freedom we enjoy in the world today is due, to a great extent, to the ideas and efforts of the classical liberals and economists of the first half of the 19th century. Inspired by the ...

Book Review: The Logic of Action

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 1998

The Logic of Action, Volume 1: Method, Money and the Austrian School by Murray N. Rothbard (Lyme, N.H.: Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc., 1997); 452 pages; $80. During the past 40 years, one of the most important contributors to the Austrian school of economics was Murray Newton Rothbard. He was also one of the major figures in the revival and renaissance ...

Book Review: How Markets Work

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 1998

How Markets Work: Disequilibrium, Entrepreneurship and Discovery by Israel M. Kirzner (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1997); 78 pages; £8.00. The revival of Austrian economics during the last 20 years is largely due to the original and numerous contributions of Israel M. Kirzner. Kirzner studied with Ludwig von Mises at New ...

Book Review: Interventionism

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 1998

Interventionism: An Economic Analysis by Ludwig von Mises (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: The Foundation for Economic Education, 1997); 112 pages; $9.95. In the summer of 1940, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises arrived in the United States as a refugee from war-torn Europe. Mises had been professor of international economic relations at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, for six ...

Book Review: Socialism and War

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 1998

Socialism and War: Essays, Documents, Reviews, The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, vol. 10 edited by Bruce Caldwell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997); 270 pages. With the recent collapse of communism, it is almost hard to remember that just 50 years ago, government central planning was considered by many as the desirable and superior economic system of the ...

Neglected Fortieth Anniversary

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 1997

A remarkable event occurred 40 years ago this month. Not the launching of Sputnik, which in retrospect, considering the collapse of the Soviet Union, had much less significance than people suspected at the time. Ironically, the event I am thinking of involved a woman who understood from the ...

Book Review: Reniassance

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 1997

Renaissance: The Rebirth of Liberty in the Heart of Europe by Václav Klaus (Washington, D.C.: The Cato Institute, 1997); 177 pages; $18.95. 0ut of all the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the one that has so far had the greatest success in instituting market-oriented reform is the Czech Republic. Czechoslovakia emerged as an independent country in 1918, ...

Book Review: Power Kills

by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 1997

Power Kills: Democracy as a Method of Nonviolence by R.J. Rummel (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1997); 246 pages; $32.95. In 1994, political scientist R.J. Rummel summarized the consequences of tyrannical government in the 20th century in his book Death by Government. (See the review in Freedom Daily, October 1994.) His research showed that governments around the world had killed ...