Book Reviews

Book Review: Scapegoats

by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 1995

Scapegoats: A Defense of Kimmel and Short at Pearl Harbor by Edward L. Beach (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995); 212 pages; $24.95. At 7:48 on the morning of December 7, 1941, the first Japanese planes reached the northern shore of Oahu. This first wave of attack planes had taken off from their carriers almost two hours earlier, from their positions ...

Book Review: The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek, Vol. 9

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 1995

The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek, Vol. 9: Contra Keynes and Cambridge, Essays and Correspondence edited by Bruce Caldwell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) 269 pages; $37.50. In 1941, American economist Kenneth Boulding reviewed Friedrich A. Hayek's The Pure Theory of Capital. He contrasted Hayek's views with those of John Maynard Keynes, and observed: "Mr. Keynes's economics of ... ...

Book Review: Hard Bargain

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 1995

Hard Bargain: How FDR Twisted Churchill’s Arm, Evaded the Law and Changed the Role of the American Presidency by Robert Shogan (New York: Scribner, 1995); 329 pages; $24. Franklin Roosevelt was a master of manipulation and intrigue. His entire New Deal was presented to the American public as a scheme to save the American system of free enterprise, when it actually ...

Book Review: A Terrible Revenge

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 1995

A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the Eastern European Germans, 1944-1950 by Alfred-Maurice de Zayas (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994); 179 pages;. $19.95. Speaking to a group of German officers over dinner in September 1941, Adolf Hitler explained: "It is the eternal law of nature that gives Germany as ...

Book Review: Days of Infamy

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 1995

Days of Infamy: MacArthur, Roosevelt, Churchill — The Shocking Truth Revealed by John Costello (New York: Pocket Books, 1994); 448 pages; $24. John Costello is a distinguished historian who has uncovered fascinating new evidence on a wide number of topics. Two of his previous works, Mask of Treachery: Spies, Lies, Buggery & Betrayal (1988) and Deadly Illusions (1993), unearthed ...

Book Review: Conditions of Liberty

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 1995

Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and Its Rivals by Ernest Gellner (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1994); 225 pages; $25. The Western world is unique. It is the only civilization that has successfully combined liberty, order, and prosperity. We who live in it — even with all of its existing impurities of statist interventionism and coercive redistributivism — take it for granted and ...

Book Review: Dead Right

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 1995

Dead Right by David Frum (New York: A New Republic Book/Basic Books, 1994); 230 pages; $23.00. The congressional Republicans are approaching the end of their first one hundred days, during which they promised to implement much of the legislation in their Contract with America, a contract that they said would usher in a "historic change" that would bring about "the end ...

Book Review: The Politics of Envy

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 1995

The Politics of Envy: Statism as Theology by Doug Bandow (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1994); 338 pages; $19.95. In his recent book, The Politics of Envy: Statism as Theology, Doug Bandow analyzes the destructive effect of envy in the contemporary world. "e live in an age of envy," he says. The problem is not that people simply want ...

Book Review: Dismantling Utopia

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 1995

Dismantling Utopia: How Information Ended the Soviet Union by Scott Shane (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1994); 324 pages; $25.00. Ten years ago, on March 11, 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union as General Secretary of the Communist Party. While great attention was given to Gorbachev's youthful 54 years of age in comparison to the other Soviet leaders ...

Book Review: Race and Culture

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 1995

Race and Culture: A World View by Thomas Sowell (New York: Basic Books, 1994); 331 pages; $25.00. Through most of history, since before the time of Aristotle, slavery has been considered a natural institution in human society. Indeed, Aristotle believed that some men were born to be slaves, just as others were ...

Book Review: Red in Tooth and Claw

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 1994

Red in Tooth and Claw: Twenty-Six Years in Communist Chinese Prisons by Pu Ning (New York: Grove Press, 1994) 228 pages; $21. The essential details of the Soviet house of horror are now fairly well known. The story of the Soviet Gulag has been told not only in the great work by Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago , but in ...

Book Review: Lost Rights

by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 1994

Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberties by James Bovard (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994); 408 pages; $24.95. Several years ago, Chicago School economist George Stigler argued: Even with the vast expansion of public controls over earning and spending in the United States since the Civil War, there has been an enormous expansion in the average individual's liberty. He has ...