Looks like 2010 will bring in a bumper crop of great libertarian books:
- First, there’s Tom Woods’s forthcoming book, Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century. Woods’s earlier book Meltdown is a great introduction to Austrian business cycle theory, and, with the rise of the Tea Party movement, his new book on nullification should also have a huge impact. See Lew Rockwell’s interview of Woods on this topic.
- After hearing the excellent Reason.tv interview with Harvard professor and libertarian Jeffrey Miron about his new book Libertarianism, from A to Z, which was published just yesterday, I downloaded it on the Kindle app on my iPad. Miron appears to be a consequentialist, a la Randy Barnett, though I don’t think Miron is an anarchist. Miron’s writing and approach reminds me somewhat of Charles Murray’s patient, reasonable tone in his What it Means to be a Libertarianism. Miron’s ostensibly consequentialist approach is anchored in implicit libertarian principles more than he lets on, but in any case, any new voice championing liberty is to be welcome (oddly he does not touch intellectual property; but then the book is not comprehensive).
- Libertarianism Today, by J.H. Huebert, should be out soon. I read this in draft, and think it will easily be the single best introduction to libertarianism for the intelligent laymen–it’s current, accessible yet intelligent and sophisticated, well-written, and informed by Austrian and anarcho-libertarian insights. As with Woods’s Nullification, the advent of the Tea Party movement makes the timing of this book propitious.
- The Conscience of an Anarchist, by Gary Chartier, which I also read in draft, is excellent and makes a great case for anarcho-libertarianism, with a left-libertarian tinge.
What a great year for liberty!
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