History

Re: History Reading List.

Andrew Cain — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 22:49:29 GMT

I have not read it yet. It's strange. I am studying American history yet I have not read his work on colonial history.

Re: History Reading List.

warswics — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 10:14:20 GMT

I'm sad to see you don't have Rothbard's 4 volume history of Colonial America on the list.

Re: History Reading List.

Andrew Cain — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 04:11:24 GMT

bump for history lovers!

Re: History Reading List.

EmperorNero — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 04:34:40 GMT

I'm looking for a book that details the end of the laissez-faire era in Europe in the late 19th century from a libertarian perspective.

Re: History Reading List.

Merlin — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 10:47:31 GMT

Just finished Taylor’s “The Hapsburg Monarchy”. I find it hard to grasp why a guy with transparent anti-German (Taylor took pride in having advised the Czechs on the expulsion of the German minority after WW2) and anti-Hapsburg feelings (obsessions?) should get to write a book on the Hapsburg Empire. Perhaps a book on pan-slavism would have been more to Taylor’s liking, although he would have been unable to criticize everything in such a book. And again, a book of the Hapsburgs that says not one word on the incredible cultural productivity of the empire is baffling, to say the least.

Bottom line: I’m certain there are many better books around. God, there must be!

Re: History Reading List.

mstob — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 20:25:12 GMT

Ralph Raico's "Great Wars, Great Leaders" is a great collection of essays. It is free on mises.org

Re: History Reading List.

Faustus — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 22:11:21 GMT

''Articles and papers would also be appreciated''

How about this: Karl Polanyi and Markets in the Ancient Near East by Morris Silver which challenges an apparant othodoxy set by Karl Polanyi(of The Great Transformation fame) which states that ancient societies like the Greek polis were somthing like command economies with administerd prices instead of a self ajusting market mechanism. A case made in Polanyi's Ports of Trade in Early Societies.

Silver is challenged here

& replys here

The above links are view only, to download click here

Re: History Reading List.

bcyclwutztht — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 20:20:43 GMT

@Marko

A very extensive list here.

This link is excellent, imo.

Re: History Reading List.

Justin D — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 04:14:12 GMT

History of Money and Banking: Colonial Period to WW2 - Murray Rothbard

Re: History Reading List.

Risch — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 04:02:09 GMT

> Please read the whole book before trying to warn off people from picking it up for lack of libertarian purity. It is a very important corrective for the widespread view of the economic history of medieval Europe. Suffice it to say that Tom Woods has cited it extensively.

You make a good point. Although the writer is not an Austrian, I wouldn't dissuade anyone from reading The Medieval Machine. It has been an interesting, worthwhile read; Gimpel has covered a wide ranch of topics, even shedding some light on the lives of average laborers, without getting tedious. My only (other) complaint might be that he focuses on England and France, but then again it's only <250 pages. I look forward to reading more non-libertarian histories, but I also hope to see Austrian analyses of world history published in the future.

Re: History Reading List.

Anders Mikkelsen — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:55:27 GMT

> Please read the whole book before trying to warn off people from picking it up for lack of libertarian purity.

Agreed. We don't want people not reading Kolko's Triumph of Conservatism just because he's not a libertarian. The books is crucial for our understanding of the progressive era.

There is a larger point that many books are helpful and useful even if we the author is wrong on some things, so we have to use the proper framework to separate the wheat from the chaff.

BTW, quote function isn't working on IE or firefox on my machine.

Re: History Reading List.

Daniel James Sanchez — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:08:56 GMT

Please read the whole book before trying to warn off people from picking it up for lack of libertarian purity. It is a very important corrective for the widespread view of the economic history of medieval Europe. Suffice it to say that Tom Woods has cited it extensively.

Re: History Reading List.

Risch — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:14:51 GMT

Just a heads up to anyone else who might be interested in The Medieval Machine by Jean Gimpel, mentioned on page 1 of this thread. I picked it up at the library yesterday after scanning this thread. So far it's a good, enlghtening read. But one hundred pages in and I've seen the words exploitation and proletariat several times; this is the 13th century we're talking about. Like the majority of historians, Gimpel (a Frenchman) had socialist sympathies. This isn't necessarily such a sin when one is reading about diplomacy or war tactics, but since this book is largely a study of economic history I'm finding it hard to take the author seriously at times. I suppose I should have read the thread more thoroughly; I was at first under the assumption that the authors listed here were Austrian/libertarian historians, but that's expecting a bit much. Such a shame that Rothbard didn't live on for a few more decades to take European (and beyond) histories as trenchantly as he did for America. Seems like most of the contemporary Austrian economic histories are only interested in American history as well.

Re: History Reading List.

Anders Mikkelsen — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:20:12 GMT

Capitalism and The Historians - various - actually not as amazing as one might hope

Thomas Babington Macaulay - Anything - great Whig historian, with all the problems the implies

Martin van Creveld - Transformation of War - put wars in a historical context. Good for understanding today's world and the past.

John Taylor Gatto - Underground History of American Education

Mises - Nation, State, and Economy - relates to WWI era

Also good are

Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism - Chandler

Gordon S. Wood - Radicalism of the American Revolution

road from serfdom - skidelsky - good book about state and market post WWII

Commanding Heights - Daniel Yergin - good book about state and market post WWII

I would note too that many books are on Scribd - even books you wouldn't expect

Re: History Reading List.

Brian LaSorsa — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 01:21:05 GMT

I hadn't seen this post, but there's another thread going around that I started for people to list the best books on United States history if anyone would like to add a selection.

If you can, the list is here: http://mises.org/Community/forums/p/17724/343064.aspx#343064