Explore Freedom

Misguided Attacks on the Rich

by George Leef September 14, 2017

Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy by Robert H. Frank (Princeton University Press, 2016; 208 pages) In 2002, I reviewed an atrocious book for this publication — The Myth of Ownership, by Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel. It argued that we don’t really deserve to own anything because society makes everything possible. Therefore, ... [click for more]

The Abyss Gazes Back

by Matthew Harwood February 14, 2017

The United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists by Peter Bergen (New York: Crown Publishers, 2016); 400 pages. It took only a few hours after two Islamic State suicide bombings ripped apart the departure hall of Brussels Airport and subway cars in central Brussels for Sen. Ted Cruz to offer a “do something” solution to the threat ... [click for more]

The Badlands of Executive Order 9066

by Matthew Harwood February 1, 2017

Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese American Internment in World War II by Richard Reeves (Henry Holt and Company, 2015); 384 pages. The Train to Crystal City: FDR’s Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America’s Only Family Internment Camp During World War II by Jan Jarboe Russell (Scribner, 2015); 2015; 417 pages. One of the great scandals of American history is ... [click for more]

The Disaster of Progressivism

by David S. D'Amato January 26, 2017

Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era by Thomas C. Leonard (Princeton University Press, 2016), 264 pages. In his paper, “The Study of Administration,” Woodrow Wilson offered his reassurances that the professionalization of bureaucracy in America would not result in a “domineering, illiberal officialism.” Free Americans, Wilson argued, had nothing to fear from borrowing ... [click for more]

End the Fed

by George Leef January 1, 2017

Who Needs the Fed? by John Tamny (Encounter Books, 2016); 224 pages. I really don’t like to start a review with a quibble, but in this instance, I must. My quibble is with the title of the book, which makes it seem as though it is aimed only at knocking out support for the Federal Reserve ... [click for more]

The Tyranny of the Distance

by Matthew Harwood December 1, 2016

The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government’s Secret Drone Warfare Program by Jeremy Scahill and the Staff of The Intercept (Simon & Schuster, 2016); 256 pages. Last summer, the Obama administration finally made good on its promise to provide some transparency to its targeted killing program — well, sort of. On a Friday before the long July Fourth ... [click for more]

The Libertarian Mind

by George Leef October 1, 2016

The Libertarian Mind: A Manifesto for Freedom by David Boaz (Simon & Schuster, 2015); 417 pages. Since the beginning of the so-called Progressive Era, advocates of big government have been on the offensive. They promised Americans more prosperity, better education, increased security, a cleaner environment, a society that’s more fair, and so on — provided they would ... [click for more]

Dallas, Texas: Nut Country, 1963

by Michael Swanson July 1, 2016

Dallas 1963, by Bill Minuteaglio and Steven Davis (Twelve, 2013), 384 pages. Nut Country: Right-Wing Dallas and the Birth of the Southern Strategy, by Edward H. Miller (University of Chicago Press, 2015), 256 pages. History doesn’t repeat, but sometimes it seems to rhyme and with the sudden and surprising rise of Donald Trump in the Republican primaries this year that may ... [click for more]

The Making of a Great Entrepreneur

by Burton W. Folsom Jr. June 1, 2016

Andrew Carnegie: An Economic Biography, by Samuel Bostaph (Lexington Books, 2015), 124 pages. Andrew Carnegie, that remarkable steelmaker, was a key player in the rise of the United States to becoming a world power in the late 1800s. More than that, Carnegie was one of the most spectacular entrepreneurs in all of U.S. history — ranked number four ... [click for more]

Welcome to Base Nation

by Matthew Harwood April 1, 2016

Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2015), 432 pages. There is much in U.S. history that Americans should not be proud of. Chattel slavery. The genocide of indigenous populations. Jim Crow. The U.S. war on terror currently under way and still with no end in sight. But few ... [click for more]

The Battle for the Supreme Court

by George Leef April 1, 2016

Overruled: The Long War for Control of the U.S. Supreme Court by Damon Root (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 274 pages. Every case that comes before the U.S. Supreme Court has its unique factual setting and contentious legal issues, but in a large percentage of them, the decision ultimately comes down to this: Should the Court defer to the legislative ... [click for more]

Securing the Blessings of Liberty

by David S. D'Amato February 1, 2016

The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty by Timothy Sandefur (Cato Institute, 2014), 200 pages. In his book The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty, Timothy Sandefur, an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation and a Cato Institute adjunct scholar, argues that “the primacy ... [click for more]