The Pre-FEE Freeman

July 13, 2009 11:19 AM by Jeffrey Tucker (Archive)

The Freeman had a long existed before editorial control was handed over to the Foundation for Economic Education. It was a continuation of a publication started by Albert Jay Nock in the 1920s.

The 1940s and 1950s-era resurgence was edited by John Chamberlain and Henry Hazlitt, and contain wide-ranging essays on economics, politics, and culture. Most of the essays are outstanding. You can also detect a hint of pre-Cold War era thing in its anti-Russian/anti-communism tilt, no doubt reflecting the anti-FDR sentiment (remember Roosevelt's Road to Russia) of this group. As a result, we see hints of early neoconservatism, with even William F. Buckley contributing. It makes for fascinating reading.

The issues have never appeared online. There are more than 100 of them. We've scanned them and are posting them issue by issue, an arduous process, to be sure, but it only needs to be done once. You will find essays by Hazlitt, Garrett, Eastman, LaFollette, and many others, all of which constitute a wonderful study in the history of ideas.

See what we have so far.