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 broad audience. Rockwell's new book is as pro-liberty as it is brutally critical of government. It is relentlessly forthright yet hopeful about the prospects for liberty. It is rigorous enough to withstand the enemy's closest scrutiny, and chock full of the energy and enthusiasm that will keep you reading.
As a collection of speeches delivered over a period of ten years, Speaking of Liberty is long (470 pages), but it is the kind of book people will want to see in the hands of friends, family, and students. The book begins with economics, and explains why Austrian economics matters, how the Federal Reserve brings on the business cycle, why we need private property and free enterprise, the unrecognized glories of the capitalist economy, and why the gold standard is still the best monetary system. The remaining sections deal with war, Mises and his work, other important thinkers in the libertarian tradition, and the culture and morality of liberty.
The book is united by a set of fixed principles: the corruption of politics, the universality and immutability of the ideas of freedom, the centrality of sound money and free enterprise, the moral imperative of peace and trade, the importance of hope and tenacity in the struggle for liberty, and the need for everyone to join the intellectual fight. We all have searched for the book we could give to friends and neighbors, business associates and family members, to explain why we believe in the cause of liberty. Speaking of Liberty is that book.
"Critics of the free market are therefore the Wile E. Coyotes of our day: sitting on the stool in comfort, they systematically saw away at the legs beneath them, on the absurd assumption that they will be able to hang in the air indefinitely after their work is done. Along comes Lew Rockwell and shouts as loud as he can: 'Beep, beep.'" Gary North
This volume's thirty-three speeches include:
- The Marvel That Is Capitalism
- A Secret History of the Boom and Bust
- Why Austrian Economics Matters
- The Viability of the Gold Standard
- What Causes the Business Cycle?
- Is Inflation Dead?
- The Economics of Discrimination
- Medicine and the State
- War and Freedom
- Free Trade versus War
- Time to End Perpetual War
- Down with the Presidency
- War and the Capitalist Press
- Mises and Liberty
- Are We All Historians of Decline?
- The Promise of Human Action
- Human Action and the Politics of Freedom
- Against Destructionism
- An American Classical Liberalism
- In Defense of Public Intellectuals
- The Sinful State
- The Real State of the Union
- The Transformation of American Opinion
- Dawn Will Follow this Darkness
- The Path to Victory
- Rockwell-Doherty Interview
- Rockwell-Kantor Interview
- The Wisdom of LeFevre
- Hans Sennholz: Misesian for Life
- The Hayek Movement
- Murray N. Rothbard: In Memoriam
- The Joy of JoAnn
- A Tribute to Trade
ISBN 0945466382
470 pgs. (hb)