Book Reviews

In this week’s Friday Philosophy, Dr. David Gordon takes apart Yale law professor Samuel Moyn’s screed against people living longer than Moyn thinks appropriate.

Lying seems to come naturally to political elites. Dr. Mark Thornton examines John J. Mearsheimer’s book, Why Leaders Lie: The Truth about Lying in International Politics to find out why elites lie so much.

In this week's Friday Philosophy, Dr. David Gordon reviews Harvey Mansfield's The Rise and Fall of Rational Control and finds that the author could benefit from some rational thinking himself.

Ryan McMaken reviews a new book on the political institutions of the Middle Ages, 'The Medieval Constitution of Liberty: Political Foundations of Liberalism in the West.' 

In this week’s Friday Philosophy, Dr. David Gordon reviews John C. Calhoun’s A Disquisition on Government, published in 1850. Like Murray Rothbard before him, Dr. Gordon finds plenty to like in this book.

In this issue of The Misesian, we continue our Year of Rothbard with a new essay from Joseph Salerno on what made Rothbard’s work in Austrian economics so notable. Rothbard took the inimitable work of Mises, as set down in his groundbreaking treatise Human Action, and expanded it further.

Reading this book confirms Charles Tansill’s emendation of a familiar saying: “The paths of military glory lead but to the grave.” When one considers the horrors of war for the combatants, Rothbard’s argument that the costs of war are virtually never worth paying is strengthened.

In today's Friday Philosophy, Dr. David Gordon revisits The Calculus of Consent by James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, considered a "classic" by mainstream economists. Murray Rothbard, however, dissented loudly.

Can a communist system flourish under a liberal government? Bernie Sanders says yes, but Melanie Armstrong, author of Chicken in a Strange Way, gives a resounding no.

Can a communist system flourish under a liberal government? Bernie Sanders says yes, but Melanie Armstrong, author of Chicken in a Strange Way, gives a resounding no.