[901] in libertarians
Laissez Faire Book News: LIBERTY & THE GREAT LIBERTARIANS
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Chris Whitten)
Thu Apr 20 10:47:51 1995
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 10:45:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: Chris Whitten <lfb@panix.com>
Apparently-To: <libertarians@mit.edu>
A magnificent panorama of libertarian thought
LIBERTY AND THE GREAT LIBERTARIANS
edited by Charles T. Sprading
foreword by Carl Watner
(reviewed by Jim Powell)
What a pleasure! This collection, originally gathered together in 1913,
offers choice selections from many of the greatest authors on liberty.
They cover a wide range of issues from art, education and marriage to
money, slavery, taxes, war and equal rights for women. This new
edition features Watner's foreword which provides valuable historical
perspective.
The selections are a roll call of 43 important names from the past two
centuries, mostly the English and American libertarian traditions,
including Edmund Burke (before the French Revolution), Ralph
Waldo Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, William Godwin, Emma
Goldman, Auberon Herbert, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Henrik Ibsen,
Thomas Jefferson, Pierre A. Kropotkin, John Stuart Mill, Maria
Montessori, Thomas Paine, Wendell Phillips, Herbert Spencer,
Lysander Spooner, Max Stirner, Henry D. Thoreau, Leo N. Tolstoy,
Benjamin R. Tucker and Josiah Warren. There are also worthwhile
selections from authors like Abraham Lincoln and George Bernard
Shaw who turned against liberty generally. Each selection is
accompanied by a fine summary of the author's life and
achievements.
In addition, the book offers 141 insightful and often inspiring poems
as well as quotations on liberty. An interesting mix of famous authors
and people you probably haven't heard of, like Lord Acton, John Peter
Altgeld, the Bible, William Blackstone, Charles Bradlaugh, Thomas
Henry Buckle, Marcus Tulius Cicero, Ernest Crosby, Benjamin
Franklin, John Hay, Claude Adrien Helvetius, Patrick Henry, David
Hume, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Edwin
Markham, John Milton, Michel de Montaigne, John Morley, Arthur
Schopenhauer, Charles Sumner, Jonathan Swift, Publius Tacitus,
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Voltaire, Daniel Webster, Mary
Wollstonecraft as well as the constitutions of Connecticut and
Pennsylvania.
To be sure, while many authors here are consistently libertarian,
perhaps most are solid only on particular issues such as freedom of
speech or abolition of slavery. You will surely find points to disagree
with. Yet I'm confident you will be delighted to discover gems
aplenty. Even the best-read among us are sure to gain a keener
appreciation for the enormous depth, thrilling passion and enduring
truths of libertarian thought.
A sampler:
"Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest
political end." --Lord Acton
"God grants liberty only to those who live it, and are always ready to
guard and defend it." --Daniel Webster
"Liberty of thought is a mockery if liberty of speech and action is
denied." --Rev. Sidney Holmes
"Whatever the State saith is a lie; whatever it hath is a theft: all is
counterfeit in it, the gnawing, sanguinary, insatiate monster."
--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"It is the pernicious hand of government alone which can reduce a
whole people to despair." --"Junius"
"To mind your own business and do the square thing with your
neighbors is an extremely high order of patriotism. If every man were
to do this, flags, governments, powers, dominations and thrones
might all take an indefinite vacation." --"Puck"
On the intellectual shoulders of the greats:
"Every individual, every generation, stands on the intellectual
shoulders of those who have gone before. Let us be among those who
stand on the shoulders of the 'giants' of liberty."
--Carl Watner, from the new foreword
This book belongs in everyone's library of liberty.
LI6298 (paperback) 359p. $14.95
LI6299 (hardcover) $24.95
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Please send this review to anyone who you think might be interested
-------------------------------------------------------------------
*Liberty and the Great Libertarians* will be available next week.
You can order it now. Call toll-free 1-800-326-0996 or
(415) 541-9780, fax (415) 541-0597 or write to: Laissez Faire Books,
Dept. L50, 938 Howard St., #202, San Francisco, CA, 94103.
To order via E-MAIL: write to Eric Shoemaker, our customer service
manager, at 74741.2631@compuserve.com; or simply reply to me, Chris
Whitten, at LFB@panix.com. If you have ordered from us before, please
include your zip code. This will verify your identity, and you will not
need to include your mailing address or credit card information. Using
your name and zip code, we will be able to look at our records and
process your order using the information we have for you on file. If this
is your first order or your information needs to be updated, you could
include your complete mailing address and credit card number with
expiration date in your e-mail order. But for your security, you might
prefer to call or fax Eric (at the phone/fax above) with this
sensitive information. Eric could either process your order right away,
or just put your information on our database so that you can order via
e-mail in the future using just your zip code. (If you would prefer to
pay by check, you can join our pay-in-advance book club, and order in
the same way. Call or e-mail for details.)
* Every order comes with a surprise free gift
* 30-day money back guarantee
You can pay for your order with a Visa, MasterCard, or Discover, or with
a check or money order. Include $3.25 for shipping. California
residents must include sales tax.
If you would like to receive our free "snail-mail" catalog, or if you
have any questions or comments, just let me know.
Thanks,
Chris
-------------------------------------------------------
Chris Whitten LFB@panix.com
Laissez Faire Books 1-800-326-0996
---The world's largest selection of books on liberty---
-------------------------------------------------------
Ask me about free Book News e-mail list, print catalog,
http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/lf/Laissez-Faire.html
-------------------------------------------------------
