The King of Prussia, Frederick II (“the Great”), confessed that he had seized the province of Silesia from the Empress Maria Theresa in 1740 because, as a newcomer to the throne, he had to make a name for himself. This caused a war with Austria that developed into a worldwide war (in North America, the French and Indian War), and went on to 1763.
[Excerpted from “Harry S. Truman: Advancing the Revolution,” in Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom ] A “Near-Great”? When Harry Truman left office in January 1953, he was intensely unpopular, even widely despised. Many of his most cherished schemes, from national health insurance (socialized
The year 1898 was a landmark in American history. It was the year America went to war with Spain—our first engagement with a foreign enemy in the dawning age of modern warfare. Aside from a few scant periods of retrenchment, we have been embroiled in foreign politics ever since. Starting in the 1880s, a group of Cubans agitated for independence
The sharp contrast that Alexis de Tocqueville drew in 1835 between the United States and Tsarist Russia—”the principle of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude” —became much sharper after 1917, when the Russian Empire was transformed into the Soviet Union. Like the United States, the Soviet Union is a nation founded on a distinct
[This article appeared in the Future of Freedom Foundation’s Freedom Daily , August 1992] Classical liberalism—or simply liberalism, as it was called until around the turn of the century—is the signature political philosophy of Western civilization. Hints and suggestions of the liberal idea can be found in other great cultures. But it was the
Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. Understandably enough, the current disfavor into which socialism has fallen has spurred what Raimondo Cubeddu (1997: 138) refers to as “the frenzy to proclaim oneself a liberal.” Many writers today have recourse to the stratagem of “inventing for oneself a ‘liberalism’ according to one’s
Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. It is not disputed that the popular meaning of liberal has changed drastically over time. It is a well-known story how, around 1900, in English-speaking countries and elsewhere, the term was captured by writers who were essentially social democrats. Joseph Schumpeter (1954: p. 394)
[Este artículo es un extracto del capítulo 3 del Classical Liberalism and the Austrian School . La numeración de las notas a pie de página difiere de la original.] Hayek sobre los intelectuales y el socialismo F.A. Hayek estaba muy preocupado por nuestro problema, ya que él también estaba totalmente convencido de la importancia de los
[Extraído de « Harry S. Truman: Advancing the Revolution », en Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom ] ¿Un «casi genial»? Cuando Harry Truman dejó el cargo en enero de 1953, era intensamente impopular, incluso ampliamente despreciado. Muchos de sus planes más apreciados, desde el seguro médico
El año 1898 fue un hito en la historia estadounidense. Fue el año en que Estados Unidos fue a la guerra con España — nuestra primera batalla con un enemigo extranjero en los albores de la guerra moderna. Aparte de unos pocos períodos de reducción, hemos estado involucrados en la política exterior desde entonces. A partir de la década de 1880, un
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