Book Reviews

This week, Dr. David Gordon reviews Ivan Eland's A Balance of Titans. While admiring Eland’s call for less intervention, Dr. Gordon asks why the US needs to intervene militarily overseas at all.

In this week’s Friday Philosophy, Dr. David Gordon reviews Steven Pinker’s new book, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows. As Dr. Gordon aptly points out, Pinker knows a lot less than he thinks he does.

H.W. Brands offers a refreshing detour from the usual smears lobbed at Charles Lindbergh and the America First Committee.

Philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe questioned the legitimacy of the state, but left open a possible justification for its existence. Dr. David Gordon examines Anscombe’s argument and finds it interesting but wanting.

In this week’s Friday Philosophy, Dr. David Gordon reviews Liberating Liberty; Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness and the Creator of Man by Bert Schwitters, praising the author's insights into the founding of the United States.

Brendan Brown reviews Ben Bernanke's 21st Century Monetary Policy. Bernanke gives a blow-by-blow account of his actions as Fed chair and justifies them as the "evolving" nature of the Fed. Unsurprisingly, he refuses to recognize the malaise of monetary inflation.

David Gordon reviews Quinn Slobodian's Crack-Up Capitalism. Slobodian’s obsession with the evils of competition, which he considers a race to the bottom, is so great that it leads him to dismiss commonplace observations that everyone knows to be true.

Tom DiLorenzo reviews Patrick Newman's Cronyism: Liberty Versus Power in Early America, 1607–1849. The book posits that early American history is best understood as a struggle between mercantilist elites seeking to plunder the people and libertarians advocating economic freedom.

Greg Kaza reviews Ben Bernanke's 21st Century Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19. The book is a candid yet self-justifying defense of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy that refuses to acknowledge how stimulus has driven inflation.

Peter Earle reviews Money and the Rule of Law: Generality and Predictability in Monetary Institutions. This edited volume delivers a timely critique of the Federal Reserve's discretionary monetary policy, arguing that a binding legal structure is needed to check its mission creep.