David Gordon Archives
The Uses of History
Gordon Wood's defense of objective history is salutary, and besides this, as one would expect from a historian of his eminence, he makes many illuminating remarks about concrete issues in American history. Despite its considerable merits, though, his book suffers from a fundamental flaw. He protests against ideologists who impose their own concerns on the past; but Wood himself has definite views about the nature of the past that are as much theoretical impositions as those of the writers he challenges. FULL ARTICLE
Morality and Political Violence
Professor Coady is best known for a book on the epistemology of testimony, Testimony: A Philosophical Study (Oxford University Press, 1992); but he has also established a well-deserved reputation as an authority on the just-war tradition. In Morality and Political Violence, he has produced a major work, characterized by an abundance of good sense and acute argument.
I have no hesitation in recommending Morality and Political Violence. It deserves to replace the hitherto standard work, Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars, as the first book to consult about the morality of warfare. FULL ARTICLE
War by Faith Alone
Weigel is himself constrained to admit that in Iraq, American intervention has increased terrorism. "American analysts and U.S. policy makers miscalculated the degree to which post-Saddam Iraq would quickly become a battlefield in the wider war against jihadism" (p. 82).
Do we not have here a perfect illustration of how American intervention causes the problem its advocates profess to cure? Naturally, Weigel does not see matters this way. For him, the increase in terrorism shows only that the American invasion should have been planned better.
Of course, we cannot leave Iraq now, he says: terrorists would regard American withdrawal as a great victory and would intensify their actions against us. One wonders how he knows this. Weigel professes belief in a "tranquillitas ordinis," but what he in fact favors is religious war. He would do better to adhere to the just war tradition he has endeavored to replace. FULL ARTICLE
Saint Ludwig?
March 27, 2008 10:15 PM
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Murphy Battles Anti-Market Economics and Ethics
March 10, 2008 8:19 AM
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Fascism, Left and Right
February 25, 2008 7:54 AM
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The Conscience of Paul Krugman
February 20, 2008 8:19 AM
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How Should a Patriot Act?
February 6, 2008 9:24 AM
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Should the State Regulate Envy?
January 15, 2008 7:59 AM
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Has John Gray Returned to Classical Liberalism?
January 9, 2008 8:22 AM
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The Mises We Haven't Known
December 3, 2007 8:25 AM
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Doomed to Failure: American Conservatism
November 30, 2007 8:25 AM
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The Manichean President
November 8, 2007 3:05 PM
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Hermeneutics Redux
October 5, 2007 8:13 PM
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Norman Podhoretz's Second Life
October 3, 2007 8:24 AM
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Forbidden Questions about the American Leviathan
September 14, 2007 8:23 AM
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Are Rich People Parasites?
September 6, 2007 7:46 AM
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Are Americans the Chosen People?
August 20, 2007 8:02 AM
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Rethinking the Constitution, Completely
August 16, 2007 9:23 AM
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The Long History of Lies for War
July 20, 2007 8:03 AM
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Who Was this "Great Liberator?"
July 12, 2007 8:38 AM
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The State is a Predator
June 4, 2007 7:55 AM
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A Rothbardian View of American History
May 11, 2007 7:40 AM
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How Long Must Iraq Hell Last?
November 30, 2006 7:46 AM
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Arendt and the Austrians
November 15, 2006 7:15 PM
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Should We Force Others to Shape Up?
October 20, 2006 7:40 AM
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Three New Deals: Why the Nazis and Fascists Loved FDR
September 22, 2006 8:31 AM
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The Hoppeian Way
September 11, 2006 8:05 AM
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Liberty and the Warfare State
September 5, 2006 8:27 AM
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Friedman Contra Rothbard
June 14, 2006 1:01 AM
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The Intelligent Lover of Radical Liberty
May 25, 2006 1:01 AM
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Tom Wolfe and the 'Fiction-Absolute'
May 23, 2006 10:25 AM
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A Tribute to George Resch
May 7, 2006 6:29 PM
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A Man, a Plan, a Flop
April 24, 2006 8:13 AM
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Feser on Natural Law and War
March 27, 2006 8:22 AM
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Michael Sandel's Case for Statism
January 17, 2006 7:33 AM
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Blunders, Lies, and Other Historicist Habits
August 31, 2005 7:53 AM
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Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995)
July 29, 2005 7:09 PM
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The Meaning and History of Liberty: An In-Print Bibliography
June 15, 2005 7:52 AM
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Fadonomics
June 2, 2005 7:40 AM
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True Globalists (Should) Reject Empire
January 31, 2005 1:00 AM
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What's the Argument for Democracy?
January 26, 2005 7:31 AM
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Rethinking American History, Completely
December 29, 2004 8:40 AM
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A Relunctant Purist: Bhagwati on Trade
October 11, 2004 10:22 AM
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Is Calculation Dispensible?
August 12, 2004 11:27 AM
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Live Free, or Be Killed
June 10, 2004 9:11 AM
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The Hayekian Prism
April 7, 2004 8:14 AM
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