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: Online Books: 508 records

A Treatise on Currency and Banking

Condy Raguet Updated 1/31/2011

This remarkable hard-money treatise appeared in 1840. It is by Condy Raguet (1784-1842), a noted Pennsylvania politician and economist who worked as a merchant in several Latin American countries. He was wholly dedicated to free trade, the free marke...
Never Ask The End

Isabel Paterson Updated 1/27/2011

Isabel Paterson Never Ask the End...
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...
Historical Setting of the Austrian School of Economics

Ludwig von Mises Updated 1/21/2011

This little essay offers something spectacular: an intellectual history of Mises's own tradition, with first person accounts of conversations with the greats. And truly, Mises turns out to have written the best single account of the origin and ea...
Liberalismus

Ludwig von Mises Updated 1/20/2011

Verlag von Gustav Fischer, Jena, 1927...
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 US Constitution and Money: Corruption and Decline

Michael S. Rozeff Updated 12/28/2010

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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...
Essays on American Empire: Liberty vs. Domination

Michael S. Rozeff Updated 12/3/2010

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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...
Defense, Controls, and Inflation

Aaron Director, ed. Updated 11/1/2010

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Instead of Dictatorship

Henry Hazlitt Updated 10/27/2010

The John Day Company, 1933...
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...
The Theory of Economic Development

Lionel Robbins Updated 10/7/2010

...
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...
The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the U.S. Constitution

Edwin Vieira, Jr Updated 9/17/2010

...
Austrian Family Album

Mises Institute Updated 9/6/2010

...
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...
A Treatise on Political Economy

Jean-Baptiste Say Updated 8/12/2010

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832) has been described as a revolutionary, an author of scholarly books and popular tracts, a social philosopher, a successful entrepreneur and a remarkable Renaissance man. Above all, however, he was a great economist. H...
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...
Towards a Theoretical Framework for British and International Economic History: Early Modern England

Sudha R. Shenoy Updated 8/10/2010

Sudha Shenoy (1943-2008) was a legendary figure in the history of the Austrian School. Her father, B.R. Shenoy, was practically the only libertarian in India in his day. His daughter, Sudha, was a student of Hayek and Rothbard and went on to teach...
The Economic Causes of War

Lionel Robbins Updated 8/9/2010

...
The Theory of Economic Policy

Lionel Robbins Updated 8/9/2010

...
The Meaning of Ludwig von Mises

Jeffrey M. Herbener Updated 8/9/2010

...
Die Partei der Freiheit (The Party of Liberty)

Ralph Raico Updated 8/9/2010

...
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...
The Capitalist and the Entrepreneur: Essays on Organizations and Markets

Peter G. Klein Updated 6/7/2010

Entrepreneurship is a hot topic in academic, managerial, and policy circles. Yet researchers and policymakers tend to define entrepreneurship narrowly as business start-ups, and entrepreneurs as young dreamers with a particular personality. In f...
Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature, and Other Essays

Murray N. Rothbard Updated 6/1/2010

Rothbard vs. the Crazies All evidence points to the superiority of the libertarian ideal—private property, capitalism, international trade, laissez-faire—but something is keeping the world from embracing it. That something is wr...
Nation, State, and Economy

Ludwig von Mises Updated 5/28/2010

This was Mises's second book. It was written following his military service in World War I. It is also his first book that dealt with political themes--and began Mises's full-scale launch into the fight against collectivism that would be a th...
Memoirs

Ludwig von Mises Updated 5/28/2010

These are difficult times for those who love freedom. But they are nothing like what Mises faced during his life. He prevailed, and his Memoirs explain how. We can learn from Mises in this respect too. "How one carries on in the face of u...
Liberty Quotations

Mises Institute Updated 5/28/2010

...
Common Sense Economics

L. Albert Hahn Updated 5/27/2010

Professor Hahn, one of the greatest but least known Austrian economists of his generation, offers a fantastic refutation of Keynesian macroeconomics, including its wild obsession with effective demand, and also a systematic presentation of the Austri...
Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

Ludwig von Mises Updated 5/25/2010

Ludwig von Mises’s Socialism is the most important critical examination of socialism ever written. Socialism is most famous for Mises’s penetrating economic calculation argument. The book contains much more however. Mises not only shows the imposs...
Debt: Private and Public, Good and Bad

Sir Ernest Benn Updated 5/25/2010

...
Mystery of Banking, The

Murray N. Rothbard Updated 5/24/2010

Readers of The Mystery of Banking will find that money and banking are, contrary to what the book’s title might suggest, no longer a mystery to them. Textbooks on money and banking are often prolix, dull, and confusing, but Murray Rothbard...
The Left, the Right, and the State

Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. Updated 5/24/2010

Lew Rockwell's new manifesto is a clarion call—creative and thought-provoking on every page—for a principled liberty in our time. There are very few books in which you can open up any page and immediately find a quotable and i...
The Ethics of Money Production

Jörg Guido Hülsmann Updated 5/24/2010

This pioneering work, in hardback, by Jörg Guido Hülsmann, professor of economics at the University of Angers in France and the author of Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism, is the first full study of a critically important issue...
Classical Economics: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume II

Murray N. Rothbard Updated 5/24/2010

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...