Literature Library

The most complete online offering of the literature of the Austrian School and libertarian ideas, including books, journal articles, and other writings, sorted by author or any method you choose.

We recommend Adobe Reader for PDF files and Adobe Digital Editions for desktop reading of ePub (ebook) files.

An ePub reader is a free, downloadable program that allows you to read digital books on a computer or other electronic device. There are numerous options available, among them: iBook, Adobe Digital Editions, Calibre, and Firefox ePub Reader.

Has the Mises.org Literature section changed your life? We want to hear from you!

Source: 320 records

Planned Chaos

Ludwig von Mises Updated 9/29/2014

This new edition (completely reset) of Planned Chaos features a new introduction by Chris Westley of Jacksonville State University. The introduction brings this classic up to date - not that it has ever fallen out of date or ever will. The title com...
Making Economic Sense

Murray N. Rothbard Updated 7/30/2014

Do you ever watch the business news and think: what would Murray Rothbard say about this? He remained a news junky all his life, even while working on his grand scholarly treatises. He was no academic snob; he believed, like Mises, that economics was...
Anatomy of the State

Murray N. Rothbard Updated 7/30/2014

This gives a succinct account of Rothbard’s view of the state. Following Franz Oppenheimer and Albert Jay Nock, Rothbard regards the state as a predatory entity. It does not produce anything but rather steals resources from those engaged in...
The Private Production of Defense

Hans-Hermann Hoppe Updated 7/30/2014

Hans Hoppe takes on the most difficult subject in economic and political theory: the provision of security. He argues that the service is better provided by free markets than government, while addressing a hundred counter-arguments. Here we have an i...
Liberty and Property

Ludwig von Mises Updated 7/30/2014

In 1956, the Mont Pelerin Society was entering a difficult period in which its intellectual lights were drifting away from liberalism of the old school. Ludwig von Mises used his speech that year to explain why this was a terrible trend. He didn'...
Lessons for the Young Economist

Robert P. Murphy Updated 7/30/2014

This is the textbook Lessons for the Young Economist. We are beyond mere excitement about Lessons for the Young Economist. It is easily the best introduction to economics for the young reader—because it covers both pure economic theory a...
War Collectivism

Murray N. Rothbard Updated 7/30/2014

War Collectivism: Power, Business, and the Intellectual Class in World War I More than any other single period, World War I was the critical watershed for the American business system. It was a "war collectivism," a totally planned ec...
What Must Be Done

Hans-Hermann Hoppe Updated 7/30/2014

This professionally prepared ebook is an electronic edition of the book that is designed for reading on digital readers like Nook, Kindle, iPad, Sony Reader, and other products including iPhone and Android smart phones. The text reflows depending o...
America's Great Depression

Murray N. Rothbard Updated 7/7/2014

This book applies Austrian business cycle theory to understanding the onset of the 1929 Great Depression. Rothbard first summarizes the Austrian theory and offers a criticism of competing theories, including the views of Keynes. Rothbard then co...
Education: Free and Compulsory

Murray N. Rothbard Updated 7/2/2014

What is it about today's school system that so many find unsatisfactory? Why have so many generations of reformers failed to improve the educational system, and, indeed, caused it to degenerate further and further into an ever declining level of...
Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls: How Not to Fight Inflation

Robert L. Scheuttinger Updated 6/27/2014

By special arrangement with the authors, the Mises Institute is thrilled to bring back this popular guide to ridiculous economic policy from the ancient world to modern times. This outstanding history illustrates the utter futility of fighting the ma...
Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition

Ludwig von Mises Updated 6/18/2014

This is Mises's classic statement in defense of a free society, one of the last statements of the old liberal school and a text from which we can continue to learn. It has been the conscience of a global movement for liberty for 80 years. This...
Toward a Libertarian Society

Walter Block Updated 6/6/2014

Walter Block has for decades been one of the most effective and indefatigable defenders of libertarianism. One feature in his writing stands out, from his classic Defending the Undefendable to the present. He consistently applies the principles of li...
Economics and the Public Welfare

Benjamin Anderson Updated 4/25/2014

Here is a contemporaneous account of the economic history of the first half of the 20th century, by an American adherent of the Austrian School. Covered in these pages is the inflation of World War I and following, the 1920s boom, and the onset and c...
Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, An

Lionel Robbins Updated 4/25/2014

An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science by Lionel Robbins first appeared in 1932 as an outstanding English-language statement of the Misesian view of economic method, namely that economics is a social science and must advance its...
Castles in the Air

Leonard E. Read Updated 4/25/2014

In Castles in the Air, Leonard Read discusses the idealistic foundations of the United States and how those foundations are crumbling right before the eyes of the people. Read addresses topics such as social order, the tendency for individuals to thr...
The Great Depression

Lionel Robbins Updated 4/25/2014

In 1934, when Lionel Robbins wrote The Great Depression, he was a committed advocate of the Austrian School of economics. This would later change, but in this book he brilliantly applies the Austrian theory of the business cycl...
Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth

Ludwig von Mises Updated 4/10/2014

This is the essay that overthrew the socialist paradigm in economics, and provided the foundation for modern Austrian price theory. When it first appeared in 1920, Mises was alone in challenging the socialists to explain how their pricing system woul...
The Gold Standard: Perspectives in the Austrian School

Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. (ed.) Updated 4/9/2014

The world’s financial system is in a precarious state, and everywhere the cry is heard for reform. The contributors to this notable anthology argue for one particular sort of reform, a return to the gold standard. They write from the perspe...
Deflation and Liberty

Jörg Guido Hülsmann Updated 3/27/2014

This monograph addresses a critically important issue: the prevailing view that deflation (falling prices and/or falling money stock) is a catastrophe that must be stopped. Jorg Guido Hulsmann shows that deflation is nothing to fear. The government s...
Study Guide to Human Action: A Treatise on Economics

Robert P. Murphy Updated 3/27/2014

This is the first-ever Human Action Study Guide, and congratulations to Robert Murphy for being the only person in 60 years to complete this much-needed task that has been attempted many times before. This Guide is spiral bound and 380 pages, comple...
Libertarian Critique of Intellectual Property

Butler Shaffer Updated 1/7/2014

What is the status of intellectual property? Are patents and copyrights legitimate in a free society? Butler Shaffer is a distinguished libertarian legal theorist who has for many years taught at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. In this m...
Fascism versus Capitalism

Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. Updated 11/25/2013

Fascism vs. Capitalism: The Central Ideological Conflict of Our Times “Fascism” has become a term of general derision and rebuke. It is tossed casually in the direction of anything a critic happens to dislike. But fascism is a r...
Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution

Ludwig von Mises Updated 11/20/2013

New hardcover edition, introduction by Murray N. Rothbard Like Hayek, Mises moved beyond economics in his later years to address questions regarding the foundation of all social science. But unlike Hayek's attempts, Mises's writings on these...
Economic Principles

Frank A. Fetter Updated 10/2/2013

Frank A. Fetter was a leading American follower of Carl Menger and the early Austrians. He was the first economist to develop a complete statement of the pure time preference theory of interest, and he revolutionized the theory of rent which had be...
Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom

John V. Denson Updated 9/19/2013

American Despots Amazing low sale price in defense of authentic freedom as versus the presidency that betrayed it! Everyone seems to agree that brutal dictators and despotic rulers deserve scorn and worse. But why have historians been so willi...
Essentials of Economic Theory

John Bates Clark Updated 9/18/2013

John Bates Clark was an American adherent of the Marginalist School who engaged the Austrians and learned from them. He delivered many blows against the Historical School in favor of the idea of pure theory. He was also one of the first economists to...
An Outline of International Price Theory

Chi-Yuen Wu Updated 9/10/2013

Greatness often comes from the most unlikely corners. Chi-Yuen Wu began this treatise while a student at LSE during the Great Depression, then returning to an anxious China, on the verge of war, and in the throes of economic instability, finished it...
Outlook for Freedom

Leonard E. Read Updated 6/21/2013

This professionally prepared ebook is an electronic edition of the book that is designed for reading on digital readers like Nook, Kindle, iPad, Sony Reader, and other products including iPhone and Android smart phones. The text reflows depending o...
Where Lies This Fault?

Leonard E. Read Updated 6/21/2013

This professionally prepared ebook is an electronic edition of the book that is designed for reading on digital readers like Nook, Kindle, iPad, Sony Reader, and other products including iPhone and Android smart phones. The text reflows depending o...
Instead of Violence

Leonard E. Read Updated 6/21/2013

This professionally prepared ebook is an electronic edition of the book that is designed for reading on digital readers like Nook, Kindle, iPad, Sony Reader, and other products including iPhone and Android smart phones. The text reflows depending o...
On Doing the Right Thing

Albert Jay Nock Updated 6/20/2013

This wonderful collection of essays by Albert Jay Nock, first published in 1928, includes his "Anarchist's Progress," "Thoughts on Revolution," "The Decline of Conversation," and other classics by this great American...
Prices and Production

Friedrich A. Hayek Updated 5/7/2013

Hayek was not only a leading champion of liberty in the 20th century. As this massive book reveals, he was also a great economist whose elaboration on monetary theory and the business cycle made him the leading foe of Keynesian theory and policy in t...
Complete Libertarian Forum (1969-1984)

Murray N. Rothbard Updated 5/7/2013

The bound edition (two massive volumes, paperback) of the Libertarian Forum that serious collectors and readers only dreamed about a few years ago. Those who were lucky enough to have the complete set held onto them for dear life. After all, their v...
Individualism and Economic Order

Friedrich A. Hayek Updated 5/6/2013

If you are looking to acquaint yourself with F.A. Hayek's perspective on economic theory--beyond his business cycle and monetary studies of the interwar years--this is the best source. The collection appeared in 1947, before he moved on toward br...
Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow

Ludwig von Mises Updated 4/26/2013

This might be Mises's best-selling book. This new release is certainly the most beautiful edition to appear yet. It is a very clear explanation of the basics of economic policy: private property, free trade, exchange, prices, interest, money and...
The Economics of Liberty

Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. (ed.) Updated 4/25/2013

This collection of short, entertaining, and educational articles exposes how government interference with the economy violates individual liberty, leads to inefficiencies, and rewards special interests. This collection appeared in 1991 and it holds u...
What Has Government Done to Our Money?

Murray N. Rothbard Updated 4/16/2013

When this gem first appeared in 1963, it took the form of a small paperback designed for mass distribution. We've conjured up that spirit again with this special edition of Rothbard's primer on money and government. Innumerable economist...
Fabian Freeway: High Road to Socialism in the U.S.A. -Digital Book

Rose Martin Updated 3/13/2013

Digital Book Both prophetic and illuminating, Fabian Freeway documents the rise and progress of socialism in Britain and the United States and tells the story of the many early triumphs of the philosophy of socialist incrementalism known as Fa...
Theory of Money and Fiduciary Media

Jörg Guido Hülsmann Updated 3/13/2013

As the Federal Reserve and other central banks run wild, it’s time to reconsider a great work by Ludwig von Mises that is as fresh and relevant today as when it appeared a century ago. The first of Mises’s major works, Theory of M...
Pursue the Cause of Liberty: A Farewell to Congress

Ron Paul Updated 3/7/2013

This is Ron Paul's "Farewell to Congress" delivered on November 14th, 2012. Yet this is not reminiscence of good times spent in the halls of power. Rather, in this booklet, you will find a devastating denunciation of the evils perpetra...
Give Me Liberty

Rose Wilder Lane Updated 3/6/2013

Digital Book Rose Wilder Lane in her youth supported the Russian Revolution, but a trip to Russia quickly dispelled her illusions. She realized that the mass politics of socialism necessarily suppressed individual freedom. America was founded on...
Accent On The Right - Digital Book

Leonard E. Read Updated 1/29/2013

This professionally prepared ebook is an electronic edition of the book that is designed for reading on digital readers like Nook, Kindle, iPad, Sony Reader, and other products including iPhone and Android smart phones. The text reflows depending o...
Awake For Freedom's Sake - Digital Book

Leonard E. Read Updated 1/29/2013

This professionally prepared ebook is an electronic edition of the book that is designed for reading on digital readers like Nook, Kindle, iPad, Sony Reader, and other products including iPhone and Android smart phones. The text re-flows depending...
Comes The Dawn - Digital Book

Leonard E. Read Updated 1/29/2013

This professionally prepared ebook is an electronic edition of the book that is designed for reading on digital readers like Nook, Kindle, iPad, Sony Reader, and other products including iPhone and Android smart phones. The text reflows depending o...
Deeper Than You Think - Digital Book

Leonard E. Read Updated 1/29/2013

This professionally prepared ebook is an electronic edition of the book that is designed for reading on digital readers like Nook, Kindle, iPad, Sony Reader, and other products including iPhone and Android smart phones. The text reflows depending o...
Having My Way - Digital Book

Leonard E. Read Updated 1/29/2013

This professionally prepared ebook is an electronic edition of the book that is designed for reading on digital readers like Nook, Kindle, iPad, Sony Reader, and other products including iPhone and Android smart phones. The text reflows depending o...
Let Freedom Reign - Digital Book

Leonard E. Read Updated 1/29/2013

This professionally prepared ebook is an electronic edition of the book that is designed for reading on digital readers like Nook, Kindle, iPad, Sony Reader, and other products including iPhone and Android smart phones. The text reflows depending o...
How Do We Know - Digital Book

Leonard E. Read Updated 1/29/2013

This professionally prepared ebook is an electronic edition of the book that is designed for reading on digital readers like Nook, Kindle, iPad, Sony Reader, and other products including iPhone and Android smart phones. The text reflows depending o...
For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto

Murray N. Rothbard Updated 12/4/2012

Latest edition includes an introduction by Lew Rockwell. In For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, Rothbard proposes a once-and-for-all escape from the two major political parties, the ideologies they embrace, and their central plans for us...