Liberty Books

The Singular Journey of Indigo Wise (The Indigo Journeys)

If you're looking for the next J.K. Rowling, look out, you might be looking at Nory Oakes and Jet Thornhill. This author duo has the heroine journey thing all figured out. The main character of their new novel, The Singular Journey of Indigo Wise, is spunky, intelligent, and precocious...all qualities we "ought-a" value in young girls. And I must say, it's refreshing to read a book in which a girl is the protagonist.

Oakes & Thornhill's writing is intelligible, even for young readers; it's never sloppy. In fact, their delightful verse reminds me of early Roald Dahl (i.e., Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), with its wit, wisdom and exceptional poetic rhythms.

Like all good fantasy, the book also functions on an allegorical level. Beginning with the disappearance of the Statue of Liberty on the first page and throughout Indigo's mysterious journey into her mother's treasure box, the story seems to gently prod the adult reader to consider democracies that have failed or are failing and reminds us that we must be part of the process of maintaining them.

If you enjoy young adult fiction that's spicy, bawdy or explicit, this one's not for you. In fact, there's nothing at all in the book that's objectionable for children of any age (that I remember). Instead, the authors rely on plain, honed, old-fashioned writing skills to delight and entertain.

The book is only on Kindle as of now but, what-the-hey, I love my Kindle and it was worth every penny, just to get my hands on this beautiful new treasure of a novel.

This is a fun and magical adventure. I didn't want to put it down.

In short, if you are a friend of the South, or would like to read the words of a man who can explain the conservative axiology, this book is for you. The contents are essential for anyone seeking a neoclassical education. For me, reading Richard Weaver's Southern Essays brings together the final sentences of Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily."

"Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair."

The book is a monument to Lee and Jackson. Anyone who wants to understand Picket's charge needs to read this excellent book.

This is a marvelous book, and a marvelous collection of essays, written by a clear and conscientious southern conservative. Richard Weaver was heir to the Southern Agrarian tradition of protest and opposition to the directions modern American society and politics was taking, particularly in the New Deal and post WW II eras. Writers like John Crowe Ransom, Donald Davidson, Allan Tate, Caroline Gordon and Robert Penn Warren, were caustic critics of modernity, of the decline in community, and a sense of the common good. Weaver, an english professor who might better be described as an intellectual, lived, learned, and worked in this tradition. Of all the essays in this collection, all of which are well written and thoughtful, two stand out in my mind. His essay on 'Lee the Philosopher' captures the pragmatic and common-sense spirit of southern political and social thought. Southerners felt little need for abstract theorizing, or great theoretical and philosophical models. Simple, everyday ideas, the ideals of common sense and everyday life, were more than enough for the down-to-earth farmers and planters of the American South. Weaver does a brilliant job of portraying Genl Lee as the epitome of the southern ideal of both gentlemanly duty and social thought. The second wonderful piece is 'The Two Types of American Individualism'. Weaver contrasts the individualism of a character like John Randolph of Roanoke, a fixture on the Virginia political scene in the early 1800's, with the individualism of Thoreau (and by implication the North). Randolph was a supreme example of an eccentric indivdual. He had bouts of insanity throughout his like, fought duels, appeared on the floor of Congress with his hunting dogs, jug of hard cider and his slave attendant, and refused to toe the party line. Yet, when the needs of his community demanded, or the society in which he lived was threatened, he was willing- even eager- to rally to the cause and defend it, despite his personal believes and misgivings. Weaver felt that Thoreau, on the other hand, with is notions of civil disobedience and voluntary taxation, put the individual ahead of the community, and would refuse to defend anything that was not justified according to his principles and beliefs. This was recipe for chaos and disorder, and disintegration. Weaver leaves no doubt as to which he preferes. The division between community and tradition, and individual liberty is a fault line that continues to run through American political and social ideas. Weaver, in powerfully defending tradition and community, has been one of the men shaping current political discourse, particularly among the social conservatives and in the religious right. He deserves to be read.

Albert Jay Nock was perhaps one of the only three truly enduring bellettrists 20th century American letters yielded up. He deployed a truly lyric and insinuating prose style of uncommon grace and oddly puckish wit, and it served to unfurl one of the rarest of American minds - a shamelessly recalcitrant individualist whose intellectual evolution never obstructed or abrogated the core of the man: that the individual deserved his long-stolen propers; that the lowest common denominator should be tolerated but not consecrated or canonised; and, above all, that the State was an organism worthy of that which its crimes ever deserves: the fear and loathing of any and every man and woman who cares a whack about his or her fellows. To read him is a singular joy. And you will find no more sensible or beautifully-balanced introduction to the man and his singularity of writing than in this volume which Mr. Hamilton has composed with uncommon brilliance.

This is a wonderful collection of some of Nock's finest essays. It offers a great insight into one of the most brilliant (and overlooked) minds of the 20th century. He is a very gifted writer and a truly dedicated lover of liberty. If you enjoyed "Our Enemy The State" you will surely cherish this book.

Whether you're political, or artistic, every American should own this book. What does the Statue of Liberty mean to you? An intangible concept that is broken down into encyclopedia form for scholars and us regular folks to digest. There are dozens of books about the Statue, but I found this one is by far the most comprehensive and the pictures are of outstanding quality. Highly recommended.

Finally, a book worth having! There were a lot of books published between 1984 and 1986 for the statue's centennial and only a few were worth having. This newly published book is a must have for the Statue of Liberty collector, historian, or proud American.

"The Statue of Encyclopedia, serves as the first ever top-to-bottom reference on one of the most beloved national monuments. Barry Moreno, the premier expert and historian of the Statue of Liberty, leads readers on a comprehensive, beautifully illustrated A-to-Z tour. Featuring an abundance of little-known but fascinating aspects and curiosities about her history, the book also includes a vast collection of photographs - many never before published."

Just the book you need to anchor your feet to the everchanging psychological and emotional ground beneath our feet. It will lift up your spirit by helping you find the better, truer "you"!

The book represents the amazingly simple essence of Sufi thought through the lectures and teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan. Balance, The Privilege of being Human, Divine Impulse, The Mystery of Sleep, The Deeper Side of Life, Graciousness, The Tuning of the Heart, The Dance of the Soul - just some of chapters. Reading this papers does give the feeling of one's consciousness being reawakened, of recollecting forgotten knowledge, of experiencing life itself. "The aim of Sufi is to remove the covers." His teaching does. It leads you to yourself

An interesting book whose premise is that Democracy in Britain is something that your children will read about in a book (if they're allowed to) and by the end of it, you may be inclined to agree.
Successive Labour party apparatchiks are squandering 800 years of hard won rights for the common man in Britain and want you to lay down your freedoms for your lives where past generations laid down their lives for your freedoms. As Benjamin Franklin said "those who give up their Liberty for temporary security, deserve neither". Those liberties survived the Second World War, the Cold War and thirty years of IRA terrorism, but are under sustained assault epitomised by a quote from Tony Blair (a lawyer) boasting that civil liberties were made for another age and who feels that you can give up your freedoms to somehow become more free which given his message about exporting freedom around the world but strangling it at home seems a tad ironic.
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, for example, blurs the distinction between what is wrong and what is illegal, giving the police a broad raft of powers, which if improperly applied may not amount to living in a police state, but certainly lays the foundation for one, allowing the people to be punished before the courts have decided what laws have been broken (i.e. being handed over to another state's jurisdiction without due evidence of a crime being committed). The drive to change the relationship between the State, its servants and the people can be best summed up by a quote by Thomas Jefferson, " when the people fear the government, there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty." That they must fear us and desire to control us is the persuasive message this book sends out.
One is reminded of the climax of Animal Farm as much as of 1984. Having done everything that is asked of them, the animals are found peering in through the window and realising that they have been betrayed by those who promised to safeguard their liberty.
Is the future Stasi Britain (only more inept when it comes to safeguarding the data filched from its citizens)? You decide. After all, Democracy is more than just casting your vote every few years

This remarkable book shows how the government is undermining the rule of law across many different areas of life. It also details how the government persecutes and smears its critics.

Its 2001 Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act allows the state to arrest and detain people without trial or charge or keep them under indefinite house arrest. In December 2001, the state arrested nine refugees and locked them up without charge. They were never investigated or interviewed by the police. After three years they were released - to house arrest. Lord Hoffmann said of this Act, "the real threat to the life of the nation comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these."

The 2003 Extradition Act allows any British citizen to be deported to the USA, without requiring US prosecutors to provide evidence. Similar US treaties with Latvia, Estonia and Malta all required US prosecutors to provide evidence. We have a special relationship indeed. Likewise, under the European Arrest Warrant, a British citizen can be taken to be tried anywhere in the EU without any evidence being presented here.

The government colludes in torture: it values information extracted under torture and is complicit in torture by allowing rendition through British airports. But, as Lord Justice Bingham said, "The principles of the common law, standing alone, in my opinion compel the exclusion of third-party torture evidence as unreliable, unfair, offensive to ordinary standards of humanity and decency."

In its preparation for its illegal war on Iraq, the government did its worst to frighten us into support. It hid the Joint Intelligence Committee's warning that the threat to Britain `would be heightened by military action against Iraq'. Instead, the government created the fictional `Ricin plot'. On 5 January 2003, the police raided a flat in Wood Green. Next day, Scotland Yard issued a statement lying that they had uncovered a terrorist plot. On 7 January, tests proved there was no Ricin, so there can have been no Ricin plot. So Blair told us that there was a plot, Colin Powell told the UN that the plot was linked to Al Qaeda and Iraq, then Blair echoed Powell's lie. In April 2005 the jury found the accused innocent of any plot.

The authors have covered a huge variety of other areas where the government is attacking our rights and liberties, from the costly and unworkable ID card scheme, to the 42-day detention proposal, to the curbs on free speech. It is a truly valuable contribution to our understanding of the threat that this state poses to us all.

My brother sent this cookbook to us during the holidays. The only problem with it is trying to get it away from my husband who reads the background of each immigrant group coming through Ellis Island while I'm trying to make the recipes!

I had the occasion to have a young man visit here during the holidays, he and I decided to make the Latkes (best ever). As he left, he hugged me in thanks for "bringing him back to his heritage." I have ordered the cookbook for him to share with his uncle who came through Ellis Island.

This is not only a great cookbook but a great reminder of what our families lived through coming to America.

This is truly a lovely book, and its price is great considering it is a hardback.The pictures are great and it provides a great prologue that preceedes each chapter regarding the history of each respective immigrant group-Polish,Greek,Jewish,English,and Hungarian are all included.everyone will find something delicious in this book...though it might not be the kidney pie!

Theory and History aims at explaining social and economic evolution. Evolution is by its very nature unpredictable. Hegel and Marx believed in their own omniscience. Marx stood outside of history and (allegedly) saw how the historical process would unfold. Of course, Marx did not describe the actual workings of the future workers paradise. But Marx "knew" where we are headed. As such, Mises is criticizing the determinism of Historicism, and Marxism in particular. True evolution is unpredictable, particularly if it is the result of action based on free will. Indeed, the existence of free will is incompatible with any theory of history that proceeds in stages.

Theory and History is a first rate critique of Historicist type socialism. This book does differ in tone from some of Mises' earlier works. By 1957 professional economists had moved away from Marxism and towards `Market Socialism'. The Market Socialists (Lange, Lerner, Dickinson, Taylor, Durbin) were not historicists, so they do not belong in this book. Mises was obviously still troubled by Marxism in the 1950's. The general public was still open to the influence of Marxist ideas. Hence Mises wrote a book critiquing Marxist/Historicist ideas that is short and relatively easy (as compared to his other books).

Theory and History is an excellent work, well reasoned and clearer than many of his other writings. You can learn much from this book, even if you have read his other works. Marxian state socialism is now dead, but the "ideology of equal wealth and income" that Mises attacks in this book is alive and well. Theory and History therefore is more than relevant in the twenty-first century. It is vitally important in the defense of free and prosperous societies.

Ludwig von Mises wrote four masterpieces: THE THEORY OF MONDEY AND CREDIT, SOCIALISM, HUMAN ACTION, and THEORY AND HISTORY. THEORY AND HISTORY was published in 1957 and is the easiest of the four books, and a good starting point to understand the philosophical underpinnings of Mises' thought.

THEORY AND HISTORY is an outstanding work on the methodology of the social sciences. As usual, Mises uses economics and sociology to criticize all varieties of leftism. The starting point for von Mises is the acting individual. Man acts rationally to achieve certain ends. What appears to be collective action is simply the action of numerous individuals. Based on this, Mises shows that collectivist theories fail to take into account the essentially individualist nature of human action. Marx claimed to be a scientist of the inevitable forces of human action, yet he inconsistently involved himself in day-to-day politics. Engles went so far as to say that had Napoleon died when he was young, history would have produced another Napoleon. Mises then discusses theories of history such as those advanced by Buckle, Spengler, and Toynbee.

One of the most exciting things about reading von Mises is how socialist fallacies fall page after page. Not only does he refute their fallacies, but he has a way of seeing right through them. For example, how can one criticize modern capitalist society for being "materialistic'" when it allows the common man to attend Beethoven concerts?

Von Mises dealt with methodology in THE ULTIMATE FOUNDATION OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE, EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF ECONOMICS, and HUMAN ACTION.

This modest, moving book is the best (powerful, readable, closely observed) single saga I've found of the life of a Japanese immigrant family. Japanese Americans might seem so successful today that it's hard to imagine what they went through as immigrants as late as the 1940s. And it's not just about internment camps in World War II. It's more about things like laws that prohibited Japanese from ever becoming American citizens or owning farmland in California. Which isn't to say this book is basically about social injustice. It's much more complex and honest than that. It's as much about all the predictable crazy ways people will shoot themselves in the foot if someone else hasn't already shot them there. It's about America as the product of millions of dreams gone so wildly wrong that, if they knew how it was going to end up, they probably would have stayed home. But they came, were stuck, struggled, hung on. And somehow, the next generation grew, struggled too, and found that this country is home. Take Me With You When You GoNutty to Meet You! Dr. Peanut Book #1

This is an excellent book!

Colloquially speaking, the main thesis of this book is that the Constitution of the United States was ratified by those who "voted their pocketbook." This has been claimed before in both popular culture and by the historian Charles Beard in his books written in the early years of the twentieth century. What sets this book apart from Beard's work however is that the author attempts, and succeeds to a large degree, to justify his claims with a rigorous statistical study. For those with the appropriate mathematical background and interest in the subject matter will find the book fascinating, even though at times the reader can get lost in the details. Absent for the most part though, and this is refreshing, is excessive moralizing by the author, for such would make the book irritating to some, with a consequent loss in readership.

The main mathematical tool used is logistic regression, which it is fair to say is the most popular tool among economists, even though at times it strains credulity to apply it in some situations that they do. This book could even be used by statistics instructors as a source of more challenging problems in logistic regression. Overall the author is convincing in his use of this tool, and therefore the conclusions of the book are difficult to counter if one accepts logistic regression as being a viable tool. It certainly is in other contexts, such as finance and biological modeling.

If one investigates the economic history of the United States after the war of independence it is not surprising to hear that Americans at the time were fed up with the loose conglomeration of states under the Articles of Confederation. Being financed essentially by paper money by the Continental Congress this currency suffered dramatic depreciation in value as the war dragged on. Some economic historians have estimated that $449 million dollars were issued during this time by the Continental Congress and the states, with none of it bearing interest. Certainly this situation motivated many at the time to seek a hard-money policy, and their attitudes are reflected in their votes for the ratification of the Constitution, as the author shows clearly in this work. To allow the states to issue paper money by fiat would be an anathema to those who lived through it during the war, and its prohibition in the Constitution would thus be a very desirable goal.

The Constitution of the United States is thus a product of the attitudes and interests of those who framed it and voted to adopt it. But their intentions, whether economic or otherwise, are in the final analysis irrelevant since only its social, moral, and legal efficacies are important. If the Constitution is an umbrella of freedom and sound justice for all of its citizens then it does not matter what the intentions of its founders are. If it is not, it should be altered, and it does not matter what the intentions are of those who alter it. The primary value of studying intentions is to shed light on the attitudes of the citizens at the time, and how they reacted to the absence of British rule after the war. No longer a part of the world market system via the British mercantile system, and having a government that could not pay the interest on domestic and foreign debt, they sought out a new alliance, a new government, to ameliorate their dire situation. Their efforts were in retrospect successful, and the government they invented has done a fair job since then.

"In To Form a More Perfect Union, Robert A. McGuire attempts to provide the first solid modern analysis to quantify the impact of the personal economic interests of the Founding Fathers on the structure and content of the U.S. Constitution. Readers familiar with the literature in this area will immediately, and correctly, associate this book with Charles A. Beard's Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (New York: Macmillan, [1913] 1935). In that book, Beard concludes that the delegates' personal interests shaped their behavior with respect to the drafting and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. His hypothesis was generally accepted until the 1950s, when most scholars began to question the analysis. An onslaught of counterevidence came during the 1950s and early 1960s, and today most academics believe that Beard's original interpretation was too narrow and that the general political philosophies of the Founding Fathers had greater importance in determining the nature and contents of the U.S. Constitution.

"McGuire essentially resurrects Beard's hypothesis and offers substantial evidence in favor of the view that the Founding Fathers' personal interests had a significant influence on the process of constitutional design and ratification. In light of the substantial body of empirical evidence this book provides, it is likely to bring the personal interest view back into widespread acceptance among academics. Although McGuire draws some of the analysis presented in the book from his previously published journal articles, at least half of what he offers is new and original. What makes the book so compelling is the use of today's significantly better empirical methodology to analyze data, in contrast to the techniques available during the 1950s, when the counterevidence to Beard's hypothesis was presented.

"Readers searching for a middle ground in the debate over whether personal self-interest shaped the U.S. Constitution will find refuge in this book. McGuire repeatedly makes clear that these personal interests were relevant at the margin in the Founding Fathers' decision calculus and that many other factors (such as general political philosophy) influenced these individuals' overall behavior. Among the most compelling findings: (1) personal interests played a bigger role in the specific content of the U.S. Constitution than in the document's overall design; and (2) the framers' debt holdings and slave ownership and the degree of commercialization in their local communities are significantly correlated with their observed behavior and, hence, with the content of the constitution they produced....

"One of the book's strengths is the amount of underlying background data and statistics provided. For example, McGuire includes tables that show not only each individual delegate's vote on an issue (the data used for the dependent variable), but also the predicted probability of a yes vote for that delegate from the estimated logistic regression model. As anyone who has estimated a logistic regression model knows, it is possible for these models to fit well overall but still do a poor job of predicting individual votes. Throughout the book, however, McGuire provides the evidence necessary to comfort readers worried about such potential problems. The book's main weakness is that at times it becomes rather lengthy and dull, but this aspect is simply a cost of being thorough, which is necessary in this case because of the controversial nature of the theory being tested.

"For the great number of readers who are likely to use the results of the book as a single-sentence footnote or reference in their own research, the eleven-page prologue provides all of the background and summary information necessary to make an informed citation of the work. The remaining three hundred or so pages merely fill in the sufficient details to support these conclusions. In that sense, the book reminds me somewhat of Bjorn Lomborg's Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

"Had I been a reviewer for the book prior to its publication, the only suggestion I might have offered to improve it would have been for the author to include a fuller discussion of the debate surrounding the adequacy and structure of the document that preceded the U.S. Constitution, the Articles of Confederation.... Had McGuire presented this discussion, he would have provided a fitting framework in which to view the Founding Fathers' choices as marginal institutional changes relative to the existing constitutional order.

"To Form a More Perfect Union undoubtedly will elicit additional research in this highly debated area of constitutional research. Future research will benefit from the 122 pages of raw data and empirical results provided as appendix material. McGuire's book most likely will meet with a better initial acceptance than Beard's book received (it was banned from high school libraries in Seattle and condemned by President Taft and by the president of Beard's own university).

"One important implication of McGuire's book is that the condition of a Rawlsian `veil of ignorance,' putatively necessary to produce a `just' social contract, is not and cannot be satisfied in reality. Any constitution or social contract will be shaped by its designers' individual self-interests. Modern public-choice scholars who favor theories based on the premise of methodological individualism will find comforting reassurance as they read To Form a More Perfect Union."

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Excerpted from a review by Russell S. Sobel in "The Independent Review," Winter 2004.