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.

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Source: Books: 320 records

Against the Tide

Wilhelm Röpke Updated 5/6/2011

Wilhelm Roepke was schooled in the tradition of the Austrians and made enormous contributions to the study of political institutions. Here we have collected some of his most powerful anti-Keynesian writings, which, in particular, underscore what...
Anything That's Peaceful: The Case for the Free Market

Leonard E. Read Updated 5/4/2011

Leonard Read was a great spokesman for liberty, and an excellent teacher in the second half of the 20th century. Everyone agrees that this is his most inspired collection. It includes the essay later called "I, Pencil," which is a masterful...
Deep Freeze: Iceland's Economic Collapse

Philipp Bagus Updated 5/2/2011

It was a modern thriving economy one day, and then, suddenly, the food disappeared from the shelves, the banks closed, and the ships stopped arriving. Iceland in 2008 experienced an unprecedented economic meltdown that struck fear in the hearts of...
Man vs. The Welfare State

Henry Hazlitt Updated 4/28/2011

In this 1969 work, Henry Hazlitt explains why politicians who promise salvation through government are dangerous. Among the essays: Instant Utopia Salvation Through Government Spending "We Owe It To Ourselves" Consequences of Dollar Deba...
Jefferson

Albert Jay Nock Updated 4/28/2011

Here is Albert Jay Nock's classic study on the life and thought of Thomas Jefferson, a book which draws out points other biographers have missed: his radicalism, his opposition to all centralized government, his attachment to liberty and property...
Country Squire in the White House

John T. Flynn Updated 4/27/2011

John T. Flynn was an early New Dealer who quickly saw what happens when power is concentrated in the executive state. He became a passionate opponent of FDR and his policies. This 1940 book is his analysis of the American presidency and the place...
The Critics of Keynesian Economics

Henry Hazlitt, ed. Updated 4/26/2011

Henry Hazlitt confronted the rise of Keynesianism in his day and put together an intellectual arsenal: the most brilliant economists of the time showing what is wrong with the system, in great detail with great rigor. With excerpts from books and art...
Liberty: A Path to Its Recovery

F.A. Harper Updated 4/25/2011

F.A. Harper was a leader in the libertarian movement from the 1950s and onward. Here is his early manifesto (1949), in which he reveals a sophisticated understanding of free markets and freedom but had not yet, as he later did, come around completely...
The Roosevelt Myth

John T. Flynn Updated 4/15/2011

Franklin D. Roosevelt is the most sainted president of the 20th century. You have to look far and wide to discover the truth about his character and policies. But as John T. Flynn noted in this landmark 1948 volume, FDR actually prolonged the Great D...
Failure of the 'New Economics'

Henry Hazlitt Updated 4/15/2011

Henry Hazlitt did the seemingly impossible, something that was and is a magnificent service to all people everywhere. He wrote a line-by-line commentary and refutation of one of the most destructive, fallacious, and convoluted books of the century. T...
The Bastiat Collection

Frederic Bastiat Updated 4/11/2011

The world has always needed this: a gigantic collection of Bastiat's greatest work in a single, super-handy pocket edition, at a ridiculously affordable price. All of the best essays by this giant of liberty are here, 1000 plus pages of it, b...
Freedom Under Siege

Ron Paul Updated 4/8/2011

Here is Ron Paul's political manifesto, a courageous book on civil liberties and the rights of Americans that are relentlessly under assault from government. It was written in 1987, on the 200th anniversary of the Constitution, and is back in pri...
Economic Science and the Austrian Method

Hans-Hermann Hoppe Updated 4/8/2011

A definitive defense of the methodological foundations of Austrian economics. Hoppe sets the praxeological view (economics as a purely deductive science) against positivism, while taking the critics of the Austrian approach head on. Hans-Hermann H...
Gold, Peace, and Prosperity

Ron Paul Updated 4/7/2011

Revised Pocket Edition! The second edition of Gold, Peace, and Prosperity is just 4.25" x .4" x 7 " in size. Truly portable and available at volume discounts. The book has been newly type set and all images updated. This is the perfe...
In Restraint of Trade: The Business Campaign Against Competition, 1918-1938

Butler Shaffer Updated 4/5/2011

This extremely important study by Butler Shaffer—professor of law and economist—will change the way you think of the relationship between the state and business. It makes a deep inquiry into the attitudes of business leaders towar...
The New Deal in Old Rome

H. J. Haskell Updated 4/5/2011

How Government in the Ancient World Tried to Deal with Modern Problems What a fantastic way to learn ancient history: via the parallels with modern times. H.J. Haskell was a journalist with a huge background in ancient history, and here he does...
The Mainspring of Human Progress

Henry Grady Weaver Updated 4/4/2011

What has capitalism contributed to civilization? It made it. And nowhere has it thrived so beautifully as in America, the country that threw off the static old world to make a new one rooted in progress and individualism. With incredible eruditio...
Century of War, A

John V. Denson Updated 3/31/2011

The horrors of the twentieth century could hardly have been predicted in the nineteenth century, which saw the eighteenth century end with the American Revolution bringing about the creation of the first classical liberal government in history. The t...
Defending the Undefendable

Walter Block Updated 3/30/2011

Professor Block's book is in a new edition from the Mises Institute, completely reset and beautifully laid out in an edition worthy of its contents. It is among the most famous of the great defenses of victimless crimes and controversial economi...
Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, A

Hans-Hermann Hoppe Updated 3/23/2011

New 2nd Edition w/ new Intro by Hans Hoppe Here is Hans Hoppe's first treatise in English - actually his first book in English - and the one that put him on the map as a social thinker and economist to watch. He argued that there are only two pos...
The Betrayal of the American Right

Murray N. Rothbard Updated 3/23/2011

Rothbard identifies a movement he calls the “Old Right.” This was a libertarian movement that included Albert Jay Nock, H. L. Mencken, and John T. Flynn. It was in part a reaction to American entry into World War I, and this group joined with revisio...
Chaos Theory

Robert P. Murphy Updated 3/18/2011

Among the most advanced topics in the literature in the Austro-libertarian milieu is that which deals with the workings of the fully free society, that is, the society with no state, or anarcho-capitalism. Robert Murphy deals with this head on, and m...
Against Intellectual Property

Stephan Kinsella Updated 3/14/2011

Would a libertarian society recognize patents as legitimate? What about copyright? In Against Intellectual Property, Stephan Kinsella, a patent attorney of many years’ experience, offers his response to these questions. Kinsella is altogeth...
The Austrian School of Economics: A History of Its Ideas, Ambassadors, and Institutions

Eugen-Maria Schulak Updated 3/14/2011

The Austrian School is in the news as never before. It is discussed on business pages, academic journals, and speeches by public figures. At long last, there is a brilliant and engaging guide to the history, ideas, and institutions of the Austria...
Out of Step

Frank Chodorov Updated 3/11/2011

Frank Chodorov was a journalist of the Old Right with an extraordinary writing ability. He was also a top-notch intellectual figure who has been tragically neglected. This collection might be his best. Among the smashing essays here are: "Isolat...
Great Wars and Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal

Ralph Raico Updated 3/1/2011

The great historian of classical liberalism strips away the veneer of exalted leaders and beloved wars. Professor Ralph Raico shows them to be wolves in sheep's clothing and their wars as attacks on human liberty and human rights. In the backdr...
Case for Gold, The

Ron Paul Updated 2/12/2011

This is the LvMI 2nd Edition! Pocket sized 5" x 7" and with a new foreword by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. Here is the revolutionary book on monetary reform - brilliant, compelling, clear, with specific reforms to do now - in an edition for...
Building Blocks for Liberty

Walter Block Updated 2/9/2011

Walter Block ranks among the most prolific and provocative libertarian thinkers in human history. This volume fills an important gap in his corpus of writing: a series of accessible articles on cutting edge topics. His research and writing on roads,...
The Theory of Money and Credit

Ludwig von Mises Updated 1/26/2011

Mises wrote this book for the ages, and it remains the most spirited, thorough, and scientifically rigorous treatise on money to ever appear. It made his reputation across Europe and established him as the most important economist of his age. We t...
Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War

Ludwig von Mises Updated 1/5/2011

Omnipotent Government was published in 1944, when the battle against Nazism held the world’s attention. How had this terrible system gained power? Mises considers and rejects several explanations popular at the time he wrote, such as inherent defec...
Politically Impossible?

William H. Hutt Updated 1/5/2011

Should economists curb their rhetoric and prescriptions based on “political realities”? Should anyone attempt to conceal the truth about state intervention for fear of not fitting into the existing political culture? Many people answer yes to...
Bureaucracy

Ludwig von Mises Updated 1/5/2011

Mises said it right here. In these pages we find the crushing critique of nearly all modern reform movements, summed up in his sweeping conclusion: "The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is...
The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically

Franz Oppenheimer Updated 12/29/2010

This is the 1908 book that started it all in the 20th century, the book that kicked off a century of anti-state, pro-property writing. This was the prototype for Nock's writing, for Chodorov's work, and even the theoretical edifice that later...
The Man versus the State

Herbert Spencer Updated 12/29/2010

Henry Hazlitt says that this book is "One of the most powerful and influential arguments for limited government, laissez faire and individualism ever written." Spencer played a huge role in the history of ideas, one that contemporary soc...
The Causes of the Economic Crisis, and Other Essays Before and After the Great Depression

Ludwig von Mises Updated 12/9/2010

Stimulus or laissez-faire? That's the essential debate about what to about financial crisis in our time. It was the same in the 1930s. In this world before and after the Great Depression, there was a lone voice for sanity and freedom: Ludwig...
Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, The

Ludwig von Mises Updated 12/3/2010

If Mises has an unheralded masterpiece, The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science is it. There are two senses in which this book is indeed ultimate: it deals with the very core of economics as a science, and it is the last book that he wrote. For t...
Marxism Unmasked: From Delusion to Destruction

Ludwig von Mises Updated 12/3/2010

We can't sit under Mises at his famous Vienna private seminar. We can't go back in time and attend his New York seminar, or follow him to his speaking engagements that he held in the 50s and 60s. But thanks to this second volume in a thrilli...
Speaking of Liberty

Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. Updated 10/25/2010

Mises said that teaching the public was just as important as addressing scholars — maybe more so.That is what Lew Rockwell specializes in: history and theory and analysis in defense of the free society, written in clear prose to reach a bro...
History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II

Murray N. Rothbard Updated 10/25/2010

Hardcover Edition The master teacher of American economic history covers money and banking in the whole of American history, to show that the meltdown of our times is hardly the first. And guess what caused them in the past? Paper money, loose cre...
Strictly Confidential: The Private Volker Fund Memos of Murray N. Rothbard

Murray N. Rothbard Updated 10/25/2010

Murray Rothbard is widely known for his vast literary output, but a great deal of his work has never been published until now. During the late 1950s and early 60s he worked for the William Volker Fund, one of the few organizations willing to fund cla...
Satan's Bushel

Garet Garrett Updated 9/25/2010

This dazzling work in economic fiction is the third of Garet Garrett's novel trilogy, written and first published in 1924. Like the others, Satan's Bushelis a splendid book, not just from the point of view of economics but also as a piece of...
Economic Thought Before Adam Smith: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume I

Murray N. Rothbard Updated 9/6/2010

This is one of Rothbard’s most important scholarly works. In the first volume, Rothbard traces the history of economics from the ancient Greeks to Adam Smith; and in the second volume, he discusses British classical economics, the French sc...
I, Pencil

Leonard Read Updated 9/1/2010

First published in the December 1958 issue of the Freeman, "I, Pencil: My Family Tree as Told to Leonard E. Read" is written in the first person from the point of view of an Eberhard Faber pencil. The pencil details the complexity of its...
Bourbon for Breakfast

Jeffrey A. Tucker Updated 8/30/2010

Bourbon for Breakfast: Living Outside the Statist Quo The state makes a mess of everything it touches, argues Jeffrey Tucker in Bourbon for Breakfast. Perhaps the biggest mess it makes is in our minds. Its pervasive interventions in every sector aff...
Economics and Ethics of Private Property: Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy, The

Hans-Hermann Hoppe Updated 8/11/2010

Austrian economics puts private property at the center of its analysis of value, price, and exchange. Respect for private property is also implied by the fundamental moral principle, "Do not steal." Hans-Hermann Hoppe...
Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy

Percy L. Greaves, Jr. Updated 8/11/2010

A president faced an economic depression that wouldn't go away, and a deeply disgruntled electorate. Not for the first or last time, the option of entering a war seemed politically appealing. How badly did FDR want a war and to what lengths was h...
Murray N. Rothbard vs. The Philosophers: Unpublished Writings on Hayek, Mises, Strauss, and Polanyi

Roberta A. Modugno Updated 6/25/2010

Here is Rothbard's stunning mind at work on some of the most serious topics in philosophy, economics, and politics, originally crafted as private memos. The advantage here is that you get super-candid evaluations of the thought of the giants whil...
Study Guide of Man, Economy, and State

Robert P. Murphy Updated 6/18/2010

The prose of Man, Economy, and State by Murray Rothbard is as clear as a bell. But its sheer size (1441 pages!) is intimidating. After all, Rothbard systematically covers the whole of economic science. Fortunately, the young and brilliant economi...
Pictures of the Socialistic Future

Eugen Richter Updated 6/15/2010

This book is a remarkable discovery, as fresh today as when it was first translated in 1893. It is a novel of life under socialism by Eugene Richter, a German liberal of the 19th century. Prophetic is not quite the word for this book. Richter...
Early Speculative Bubbles and Increases in the Supply of Money

Doug French Updated 6/7/2010

Early Speculative Bubbles & Increases in the Money Supply The Housing Bubble was hardly the first in human history. What's eluded historians is the same issue that eludes commentators today: the underlying cause of bubbles. This book is...