Book Reviews

For this week‘s version of Friday Philosophy, Dr. David Gordon reviews Mary Grabar‘s Debunking FDR, which examines Roosevelt‘s paternalistic worldview and how it shaped his political life and his presidency. 

In this week‘s Friday Philosophy, Dr. David Gordon takes us through the high points of Robert Nozick by Ralf M. Bader, who writes favorably about Anarchy, State, and Utopia. In fact, Dr. Gordon believes Bader has made important contributions to libertarian thought.

This week on Friday Philosophy, Dr. David Gordon reviews The Price of Our Values by Augustin Landier and David Thesmar. While the authors claim that economists often substitute utilitarianism for moral values, they dismiss any idea of objective standards for morality.

In this edition of Friday Philosophy, Dr. David Gordon reviews Arnold Schelsky‘s The Hype Cycle and finds some worthy insights into things that modern culture has hyped, such as climate change.

Dr. Gordon reviews Quinn Slobodian‘s latest book trashing the Austrians, especially Murray Rothbard. Not surprisingly, Slobodian shows little understanding of the Austrians and economic history.

In Nicholas Wolterstorff‘s Understanding Liberal Democracy, he assails a vastly influential school of thought in a way that libertarians will find useful.

Herbert Marcuse took pride in his dense, but incomplete writings on philosophy. Dr. Gordon examines Jacob McNulty‘s futile attempt to interpret the thinking of someone who supported Marxian socialism but never successfully explained it.

In this week‘s Friday Philosophy, Dr. David Gordon reviews Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction by Jim Downs, who exposes the high death rates from disease suffered by newly-freed slaves because of neglect by Union armies.

While historian Walter A. McDougall was not a libertarian, nonetheless he had some Rothbardian insights on Woodrow Wilson and his reckless intervention into World War I. David Gordon notes that while McDougall‘s views on intervention were inconsistent, they still are useful.

Joe Stiglitz is a man with a large ego who believes he holds a special knowledge about economics. In his latest book, however, The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society, his description of what he thought F.A. Hayek believed is a caricature of Hayek‘s thought.