Book Reviews

Book Review: Out of Work

by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 1993

Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth-Century America by Richard K. Vedder and Lowell E. Gallaway (New York/London: Holmes & Meier, 1993); 336 pages. In 1932, the English economist Edwin Cannan delivered the presidential address to the Royal Economic Society. His topic was "The Demand for Labor." With the Great ...

Book Review: Mises

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 1993

Mises: An Annotated Bibliography compiled by Bettina Bien Greaves and Robert W. McGee (Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: The Foundation for Economic Education, 1993); 391 pages; $14.95. In his 1894 book, The Tyranny of Socialism, the French classical liberal Yves Guyot admitted that "we, who are endeavoring to recall the principles of equality before the law and the guarantees of individual liberty, are ...

Book Review: Second Thoughts

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 1993

Second Thoughts: Myths and Morals of U.S. Economic History edited by Donald N. McCloskey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); 208 pages; $24.95. In his introduction to the 1954 book Capitalism and the Historians , Friedrich A. Hayek pointed out that "past experience is the foundation on which our beliefs about ...

Book Review: Hayek and the Keynesian Avalanche

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 1993

Hayek and the Keynesian Avalanche by Brian McCormick (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992); 289 pages; $59.95. In England in the 1930s, there were two opposing schools of economic thought concerning the causes, consequences and cures of the Great Depression. One was headquartered at the London School of Economics, with the ...

Book Review: Welfare Economics and Externalities in an Open Ended Universe

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 1993

Welfare Economics and Externalities in an Open Ended Universe: A Modern Austrian Perspective by Roy E. Cordato (Boston: Kluwer Academic Press, 1992); 140 pages. Classical liberals and libertarians have traditionally argued that government should be limited to certain essential functions for the sake of social order: police protection against domestic criminals, military force for security against foreign aggression, and a court ...

Book Review: Russia’s Secret Rulers

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 1993

Russia's Secret Rulers: How the Government and the Criminal Mafia Exercise Their Power by Lev Timofeyev (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992); 177 pages; $21.00. The Soviet Union was a harsh taskmaster for those who were interested in truth and were daring enough to convey the truths they had learned. Lev Timofeyev graduated as an economist from the Moscow Institute of ...

Book Review: Reinventing Politics

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 1993

Reinventing Politics: Eastern Europe from Stalin to Havel by Vladimir Tismaneanu (New York: The Free Press, 1992); 312 pages; $24.95. Europe lasted for more than four decades. And each of the communist regimes constructed in Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania were, in its essentials, created in ...

Book Review: A Nation of Victims

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 1993

A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character by Charles J. Sykes (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992); 289 pages; $22.95. One of the reasons that socialism came to have such a great appeal to many in the 19th and 20th centuries was that it offered a powerful rationale for an individual to avoid responsibility for the consequences of ...

Book Review: Laogai – The Chinese Gulog

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 1993

Laogai—The Chinese Gulag by Hongda Harry Wu (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, Inc., 1992); 247 pages; $34.95. The world has marveled for over ten years at the economic progress in communist China. The collective farms were transformed into private family enterprises. The Communist Party declared that "to be rich is glorious," and ...

Book Review: Russia Transformed

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 1992

Russia Transformed: Breakthrough to Hope by James H. Billington (New York: The Free Press, 1992); 202 pages; $19.95. Earlier this year, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., hosted an exhibit of previously secret documents from the Soviet archives. One of them was an order sent by Lenin on August 11, 1918, to ...

Book Review: Forbidden Grounds

by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 1992

Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws by Richard A. Epstein (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1992); 530 pages; $39.95. In the 1960s, many conservatives opposed the civil-rights acts and forced-integration laws that were passed. Some of these conservatives may have been racists who ...

Book Review: The Development Frontier

by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 1992

The Development Frontier: Essays in Applied Economics by Peter Bauer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991); 241 pages; $24.95. Socialism has had two playgrounds on which to exercise its destructive force. One has been in the former Soviet-bloc countries, which now stand in disarray and which now are attempting to recover from ...