The Defenders of Liberty presents a history of economic liberalism from the Renaissance to the present. It chronicles the tradition of thought that sees human nature as social yet self-interested, methodological individualism as its key analytical tool, and property rights as foundational to a civilised society. In the development of this way of thinking, it considers the contributions of many key thinkers including Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Richard Cantillon, A.J.R. Turgot, David Hume, Adam Smith, Nassau William Senior, Richard Cobden, Herbert Spencer, Jean-Baptiste Say, Carl Menger, William Stanley Jevons, Gaetano Mosca, Eugen Böhm-Bawerk, Vilfredo Pareto, Phillip Wicksteed, Edwin Cannan, Ludwig von Mises, Lionel Robbins, F.A. Hayek, W.H. Hutt, Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Murray N. Rothbard, James M. Buchanan, and Thomas Sowell. The book contends that liberalism needs to be grounded in realism, and that it has been derailed whenever economists have deviated from an explicitly realist understanding of human nature, individualism and property rights. It argues that the cause of liberalism was compromised by errors in economic reasoning by such major figures as David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Alfred Marshall, A.C. Pigou, and John Maynard Keynes. In diagnosing what has gone wrong for liberalism in the twenty-first century, The Defenders of Liberty argues against substituting mathematical abstraction for causal realism; it opposes interventionist central banking; it seeks to recover economic liberalism from social and political liberalism, which are somewhat unrelated schools of thought; it resists a view of human nature rooted in selfishness or atomised individualism; and finally alerts defenders of freedom to the ruthless but effective language games played by their opponents. This book will be of interest to the educated general reader as well as undergraduates and postgraduates in disciplines such as economics, political theory and philosophy.

A noted military historian and author of "The African-American Soldier" reveals the critical and heroic role African Americans played in the American Revolution, the last war to use integrated units until the Korean Conflict. of illustrations.

James Burnham describes in details the history of Machiavelli and the modern Machiavellians who have been using his ideas to influence modern political liberty.

Christians are often thought of as defending only their own religious interests in the public square. They are viewed as worrying exclusively about the erosion of their freedom to assemble and to follow their convictions, while not seeming as concerned about publicly defending the rights of Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and atheists to do the same. Andrew T. Walker, an emerging Southern Baptist public theologian, argues for a robust Christian ethic of religious liberty that helps the church defend religious freedom for everyone in a pluralistic society. Whether explicitly religious or not, says Walker, every person is striving to make sense of his or her life. The Christian foundations of religious freedom provide a framework for how Christians can navigate deep religious difference in a secular age. As we practice religious liberty for our neighbors, we can find civility and commonality amid disagreement, further the church's engagement in the public square, and become the strongest defenders of religious liberty for all. Foreword by noted Princeton scholar Robert P. George.

Anne Applebaum, Garry Kasparov, Richard North Patterson, and a constellation of other thinkers make the urgent case for liberal democracy -- reinvigorating its central values in an age of doubt and discord. Liberal democracy is in crisis around the world, besieged by authoritarianism, nationalism, and other illiberal forces. Far-right parties are gaining traction in Europe, Vladimir Putin tightens his grip on Russia and undermines democracy abroad, and America struggles with poisonous threats from the right and left. But the defenders of democracy are strong too. Taking their cues from the 1788 Federalist Papers, the Renew Democracy Initiative is a collective of pro-democracy advocates from across the political spectrum, including Anne Applebaum, Garry Kasparov, Max Boot, Bret Stephens, Ted Koppel, and Natan Sharansky. This book is their foundational document, a collection of essays that analyze the multi-pronged threats to liberal democracy in the U.S. and abroad, and offer solutions based on fundamental democratic principles such as freedom of speech, a free press, and the rule of law. Fight for Liberty is a roadmap for the struggle against the rising tide of extremism and a cri de coeur in defense of the liberal world order, which sees itself threatened as never before today.

After the Revolutionary War established the independent United States of America, a different kind of revolution took place. Between Shays' Rebellion and the final flourish of a quill pen on the Constitution, the country's greatest leaders faced a challenge that would either keep the states together or tear them apart. From the roads of Boston to Independence Hall in Philadelphia, delegates battled out the particulars of how the new country would be governed. In this inspiring story of leadership, discover how diplomacy and compromise created a document that would defend the nation's freedom at once and for the future.

From the national legal director of the ACLU, an essential guidebook for anyone seeking to stand up for fundamental civil liberties and rights One of Washington Post's Notable Nonfiction Books of 2016 In an age of executive overreach, what role do American citizens have in safeguarding our Constitution and defending liberty? Must we rely on the federal courts, and the Supreme Court above all, to protect our rights? In Engines of Liberty, the esteemed legal scholar David Cole argues that we all have a part to play in the grand civic dramas of our era -- and in a revised introduction and conclusion, he proposes specific tactics for fighting Donald Trump's policies. Examining the most successful rights movements of the last thirty years, Cole reveals how groups of ordinary Americans confronting long odds have managed, time and time again, to convince the courts to grant new rights and protect existing ones. Engines of Liberty is a fundamentally new explanation of how our Constitution works and the part citizens play in it.

This book examines the competing visions of liberty and community in Canada. Focusing attention on constitutional debate in Ontario after the Confederation of 1867, the author shows how the defenders of provincial autonomy constructed a powerful political and legal ideology that attempted to reconcile liberty and community.

American billionaire Ross Egan is still living in the West African nation of Dutannuru where his wife and child died years earlier in a brutal civil war. Now a fragile democracy, Dutannuru is thrust into the international spotlight when a neighboring despot threatens violence—and Ross Egan's heroic actions and immediate worldwide fame abruptly land him on the short list of candidates for the United States presidency. Despite his reservations, Egan is intrigued by the challenge of unseating the incumbent, a ruthless and radically left-wing political operator. But entering the presidential race may turn out to be the most dangerous decision this war-hardened expat billionaire has ever made...

Isaiah Berlin's celebrated radio lectures on six formative anti-liberal thinkers were broadcast by the BBC in 1952. They are published here for the first time, fifty years later. They comprise one of Berlin's earliest and most convincing expositions of his views on human freedom and on the history of ideas--views that later found expression in such famous works as "Two Concepts of Liberty," and were at the heart of his lifelong work on the Enlightenment and its critics. Working with BBC transcripts and Berlin's annotated drafts, Henry Hardy has recreated these lectures, which consolidated the forty-three-year-old Berlin's growing reputation as a man who could speak about intellectual matters in an accessible and involving way. In his lucid examination of sometimes complex ideas, Berlin demonstrates that a balanced understanding and a resilient defense of human liberty depend on learning both from the errors of freedom's alleged defenders and from the dark insights of its avowed antagonists. This book throws light on the early development of Berlin's most influential ideas and supplements his already published writings with fuller treatments of Helvétius, Rousseau, Fichte, Hegel, and Saint-Simon, with the ultra-conservative Maistre bringing up the rear. These thinkers gave to freedom a new dimension of power--power that, Berlin argues, has historically brought about less, not more, individual liberty. These lectures show Berlin at his liveliest and most torrentially spontaneous, testifying to his talents as a teacher of rare brilliance and impact. Listeners tuned in expectantly each week to the hour-long broadcasts and found themselves mesmerized by Berlin's astonishingly fluent extempore style. One listener, a leading historian of ideas who was then a schoolboy, was to recount that the lectures "excited me so much that I sat, for every talk, on the floor beside the wireless, taking notes." This excitement is at last recreated here for all to share.