The winners write the history, and the winning states especially so. Thomas Woods, however, sets out to write a primer on American history from a different point of view, one that doesn’t glorify centralization and intervention.
The result is the only primer on American political history that is heavily informed by the economics of the Austrian School. It was also a New York Times bestseller and one of the most controversial books in American history to appear in decades.
From the Puritans through the drafting of the Constitution, the Civil War, the World Wars, the rise of the “Great Society” all the way up through the of the Clinton Administration, this brightly written book discusses the real ideals of the founding, the truth about the Civil War, the heroism of the robber barrons, the ravages of statism in World War I, high taxes, and the war against free markets.
Thomas Woods studied under Rothbard before completing his PhD at Columbia. He writes in a Rothbardian spirit, combining scholarship, radicalism, and a burning desire to communicate. This book was marketed by the publisher to a conservative audience (e.g. the title alone), but what readers actually find is a radical reinterpretation of the whole American experience from a Jeffersonian-Rothbardian point of view.
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I read this last summer. It’s a very good “overview” kind of thing, without dwelling too much on any one subject. I personally enjoyed the “this person said” side-notes throughout. Very readable and enjoyable.
It makes a good one-two punch with DiLorenzo’s _How Capitalism Saved America_.
“This book was marketed by the publisher to a conservative audience (e.g. the title alone), but what readers actually find is a radical reinterpretation of the whole American experience from a Jeffersonian-Rothbardian point of view.”
Given the state of “conservatism” over the last 50 years, and especially the modern neo-conservative movement, hopefully Professor Wood’s book has helped some of the adherents of these ideologies to understand the incorrectness of their views and to convert them to the Jeffersonian-Rothbardian tradition. It is especially the Rothbardian tradition that consistently emphasizes truth and accuracy in historical research, the rationality of the Austrian School of Economics, and the extreme importance, if not primacy, of individual liberty.
Maybe the book will even positively impact some of those on the Left, as they are in just as much need of education regarding this subject matter as those on the Right.
Thank you Professor Woods for the excellent, factual primer on American history, and please continue the much needed work in this area.
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