Books
The full catalog of digitized books will live here. This first title is the prototype for the new reading experience.
John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVIII - Essays on Politics and Society Part I (On Liberty)
Vol. 18 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains a number of Mill’s essays on politics, including his reviews of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and his book On Liberty.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.
*The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill *consists of 33 volumes which contain the writings of one of the leading classical liberals of the 19th century. Mill wrote works of political economy, philosophy, history, political theory, and corresponded with many of the leading figures of his day. The collection also includes the speeches he gave as a member of parliament and many volumes of his newspaper articles.
Open the reader →Voltaire
The Works of Voltaire, Vol. I (Candide)
Taken from the 21 volume 1901 edition of the Complete Works, this is Voltaire’s most famous “philosophic tale” in which he makes fun of the idea that “this is the best of all possible worlds” by showing how much injustice and folly there really is in the world. He targets slavery, religious intoleration, and tyranny. He concludes that each person should “tend to their own garden” and leave others alone to do likewise.
Open the reader →Voltaire
Toleration and Other Essays
This collection of essays by Voltaire contains a long essay on the Jean Calas case, several shorter essays on religious topics, and his famous poem on the Lisbon earthquake.
Open the reader →William Graham Sumner
What Social Classes Owe to Each Other
Sumner was one of the founding fathers of American sociology who explored the relationship between the individual and the state from an individualist and free market perspective. This collection of essays is a good example of his approach to the subject.
Open the reader →William Graham Sumner
War and Other Essays
One of several collections of Sumner’s essays which were published in the early 20th century. This volume contains his famous essay on the Spanish-American War.
Open the reader →Thomas Paine
The Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. II (1779-1792)
Vol. 2 of a 4 vol. collection of the works of Thomas Paine. Vol. 2 (1779-1792) contains the Letter to Abbey Raynal, Dissertations on Government, The Rights of Man (1 and 2) and various articles.
Open the reader →Thomas Paine
The Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. I (1774-1779)
Vol. 1 of a 4 vol. collection of the works of Thomas Paine. Vol. 1 contains letters and newspaper articles, *Common Sense,* and *The American Crisis.*
Open the reader →David Hume
A Treatise of Human Nature (1896 ed.)
Hume’s first major work of philosophy was published in 1739 when he was just 28 years old. It is made up of three books entitled “Of the Understanding”, “Of the Passions”, and “Of Morals”. In the book he uses his sceptical rationalism to create an ambitious “science of man”.
Open the reader →David Hume
The Natural History of Religion (1889 ed.)
In <i>The Natural History of Religion</i> and in the <i>Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion</i> Hume provides a sustained philosophical and historical analysis of religion.
Open the reader →Henry Elliot Malden
Magna Carta Commemoration Essays
A collection of essays about the history and continuing significance of Magna Carta.
Open the reader →John Lackland (King John)
Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John, with an Historical Introduction
This is a detailed and meticulous edition of Magna Carta with each clause in the original Latin, followed by an English translation and heavily annotated by the editor.
Open the reader →Herbert Spencer
Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, vol. 3
Volume 3 of a three volume collection of Spencer’s essays which cover political philosophy, sociology, science, and current affairs.
Open the reader →Herbert Spencer
Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative, Vol. 1
Volume 1 of a three volume collection of Spencer’s essays which cover political philosophy, sociology, science, and current affairs.
Open the reader →Herbert Spencer
The Principles of Ethics, vol. 2
Spencer considered <i>The Principles of Ethics</i> to be his finest work. In the second volume he covers the ethics of social life (or justice), negative beneficence, positive beneficence, and a number of topics in several appendices (such as Kant’s theory of rights, land ownership, and animal rights). In the large section on “Justice” he discusses property rights, free exchange, free speech, the rights of women and children, and the nature of the state.
Open the reader →Herbert Spencer
The Principles of Ethics, vol. 1
Vol. I of a two volume work which Spencer considered to be his finest work. In volume I he covers the data of ethics, the inductions of ethics, and the ethics of individual life. [Read the Liberty Classic](https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2019/MingardiSpencerethics.html) on this title from Econlib.
Open the reader →Herbert Spencer
The Man versus the State, with Six Essays on Government, Society and Freedom (LF ed.)
This volume contains the four essays that Spencer published as <i>The Man Versus the State</i> in 1884 as well as five essays added by later publishers. In addition, it provides “The Proper Sphere of Government,” an important early essay by Spencer.
Open the reader →Thomas Hodgskin
Travels in the North of Germany, vol. 1
Vol. I of a two volume work in which Hodgskin describes in great detail the economic, political, legal, and social conditions he observed in his travels across northern Germany.
Open the reader →Thomas Hodgskin
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted
In this series of letters to Lord Braugham, Hodgskin distinguishes between the natural right of property (based upon Lockean principles of natural law) and the artificial right of property (which is decreed by parliament). He associated the doctrine of the artificial right of property with Benthamite reformers who were attempting to reform the English state.
Open the reader →Thomas Hodgskin
An Essay on Naval Discipline
Hosgskin began his interesting career as a radical individualist and natural rights defender of the free market with this pamphlet criticising the British naval policy of impressing (i.e. conscripting) sailors into the navy and using corporal punishment to discipline them. He based this account on his own personal experiences while serving the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars.
Open the reader →Anthony de Jasay
The State
*The State* is a brilliant analysis of modern political arrangements that views the state as acting in its own interest contrary to the interests of individuals and even of an entire society. [Read the Liberty Classic](https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2018/Lemieuxstate.html) on this title from Econlib
Open the reader →Friedrich List
The National System of Political Economy
A German historian who wrote in favor of protective tariffs and trade retaliations between industrial nations, even if they maintain free trade within each country. During the 1820s, he lived in Pennsylvania, where he contributed to the pro-tariff debates in the United States. His economic arguments were centered around refutations of Adam Smith.
Open the reader →Thomas Mackay
A Plea for Liberty: An Argument against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation (LF ed.)
This collection of essays was originally published in 1891 in response to a collection of *Fabian Essays on Socialism* which advocated policies which would eventually lead to the modern welfare state. The theoretical and empirical contributions are fine examples of the classical liberal tradition in British thought.
Open the reader →Jane Haldimand Marcet
John Hopkins’s Notions on Political Economy
Marcet was self-taught in many fields and became a successful popularizer of several demanding fields (such as chemistry and economics) in spite of being discriminated against as a women. This book is one of her works of popularizing economic theory, as seen through the eyes of honest John Hopkins, a poor laborer on low wages.
Open the reader →Israel M. Kirzner
The Economic Point of View
Kirzner’s _The Economic Point of View_ is a thoughtful study of how and why economists are successful at sorting out certain issues but less successful at others, issues from welfare to wealth to human actions. Ludwig von Mises, for whom Kirzner once worked as a graduate assistant, wrote the Foreword to the first edition.
Open the reader →John Maynard Keynes
The Economic Consequences of the Peace
As part of the British delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference after WW1 Keynes had detailed knowledge of the debates about reparations which were demanded of Germany. He believed the demands on defeated Germany were too harsh and he resigned his government position and wrote this book explaining his reasons.
Open the reader →Samuel Smiles
Self Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct
An early Victorian self-help book that combines Victorian morality with sound free market ideas into moral tales showing the benefits of thrift, hard work, education, perseverance, and a sound character. Smiles drew upon the personal success stories of the emerging self-made millionaires in the pottery industry (Josiah Wedgwood), the railway industry (Watt and Stephenson), and the weaving industry (Jacquard) to make his point that the benefits of the market were open to anyone.
Open the reader →Bruce Smith
Liberty and Liberalism: A Protest against the Growing Tendency toward undue Interference by the State, with Individual Liberty, Private Enterprise and the Rights of Property
Smith was a follower of Herbert Spencer and the English Liberty and Property Defence League. His book is a critique of the growing intervention of the state in economic and civil matters in Australia and elsewhere in the late 19th century.
Open the reader →Frank William Taussig
Some Aspects of the Tariff Question
Taussig, a professor of economics at Harvard, wrote what has become a classic work on modern trade theory that critically examines the economic implications of tariffs and protectionism. Taussig explores how tariffs influence domestic industries, trade relations, and economic growth, offering insights into the complex dynamics of international commerce. .
Open the reader →John Millar
The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks
*The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks* is one of the major products of the Scottish Enlightenment and a masterpiece of jurisprudence and social theory. Millar developed a progressive account of the nature of authority in society by analyzing changes in subsistence, agriculture, arts, and manufacture.
Open the reader →Jeremy Bentham
Defence of Usury
An 1818 edition which combines Bentham’s defence of the practice of charging interest on loans with a critique of certain taxes which increased the cost of appearing before the courts. Another copy of [this book](https://www.econlib.org/library/Bentham/bnthUs.html) can be found in HTML format at our sister website [Econlib](https://www.econlib.org/).
Open the reader →Frédéric Bastiat
Economic Sophisms (FEE ed.)
The Foundation for Economic Education's translation of Bastiat’s series of short essays in which he tries to correct common misunderstandings about the free market.
Open the reader →Jean-Baptiste Say
A Treatise on Political Economy
One of the most influential works on Political Economy in the 19thC. It set the stage for the development of the study of political economy in France and an early translation into English helped make it become the most used economics textbook in the United States.
Open the reader →Herbert Spencer
Social Statics
Spencer’s first major work of political philosophy in which he attempts to lay the basis for a limited state on a rigorous development of a doctrine of natural rights. He begins with a defense of his “first principle” ’that every man, may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberty by every other man.” From that, he argues, follows all other rights.
Open the reader →John Milton
The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth
A defence of the Republic written on the eve of the restoration of the monarchy. Milton persisted in opposing rule by one man in favor of rule by those to whom power had been delegated by the people.
Open the reader →John Milton
The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates
Written during the English Revolution, Milton’s pamphlet argues that there exists a voluntary contract between free men and their rulers, and that if a ruler becomes a tyrant then the people have the right to depose him if the ordinary magistrates have not done so.
Open the reader →Percy Bysshe Shelley
Posthumous Poems
A volume of poems published after Shelley’s death in 1822 with a preface by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXVIII - Public and Parliamentary Speeches Part I November 1850 - November 1868
Vol. 28 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s electoral and parliamentary speeches from 1865-1868, including those on the right of women to vote, the Reform Bill, the riots in Jamaica, India, and smoking in railway carriages.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I
Vol. 22 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s newspaper articles from 1822-1831, including many on the French Revolution of 1830 and the series called The Spirit of the Age.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXI - Essays on Equality, Law, and Education (Subjection of Women)
Vol. 21 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains a number of Mill’s essays on the law, women and children, the American Civil War, and his book on The Subjection of Women. It also contains in the Appendix Harriet Taylor’s works On Marriage and the Enfranchisement of Women.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume III - Principles of Political Economy Part II
Vol. 3 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Part 2 of Mill’s Principles of Political Economy.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume I - Autobiography and Literary Essays
Vol. 1 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s autobiography and some literary essays mostly from the 1830s.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume X - Essays on Ethics, Religion, and Society (Utilitarianism)
Vol. 10 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains a number of Mill’s essays on religion and moral philosophy as well as his works on Utilitarianism and Auguste Comte.
Open the reader →Adam Smith
An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Cannan ed.), vol. 1
Cannan’s justly famous early 20th century edition of Smith’s Wealth of Nations with his introduction and notes.
Open the reader →William Godwin
An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. II.
Godwin’s best known work of political theory. Written in the early years of the French Revolution before the Terror had begun, Godwin provides a devastating critique of unjust government institutions and optimistically proposes that individuals not the state can best provide for their needs. He believed that political change could best be brought about gradually and as a result of free discussion in small communities. This work has inspired many generations of radical thinkers.
Open the reader →Richard Cobden
The Political Writings of Richard Cobden, vol. 2
Vol. 2 of a two volume collection of the political writings of Richard Cobden which focuses on foreign policy, and war and peace. Vol. 2 contains the “Third Letter”, How Wars are Got up in India (1853), What Next - and Next? (1856), and The Three Panics (1862).
Open the reader →Gustave de Molinari
The Society of Tomorrow: A Forecast of its Political and Economic Organization
In this vision of a future society, the Belgian laissez-faire economist Molinari suggests how many, if not most, public goods could be provided by the free market or by radically decentralized local governments.
Open the reader →Algernon Sidney
Discourses Concerning Government (LF ed.)
Written in response to Sir Robert Filmer’s <i>Patriarcha</i> (1680), the <i>Discourses Concerning Government</i> is a classic defense of republicanism and popular government. Sidney rejected Filmer’s theories of royal absolutism and divine right of kings, insisting that title to rule should be based on merit rather than birth; and republics, he thought, were more likely to honor merit than were monarchies.
Open the reader →John Locke
The Two Treatises of Civil Government (Hollis ed.)
Locke’s most famous work of political philosophy began as a reply to Filmer’s defense of the idea of the divine right of kings and ended up becoming a defense of natural rights, especially property rights, and of government limited to protecting those rights. This 1764 edition is famous for being the edition which was widely read in the American colonies on the eve of the Revolution.
Open the reader →Sir Robert Filmer
Patriarcha, or the Natural Power of Kings
In the aftermath of the English Revolution which saw the execution of a king and the creation of a Commonwealth and the restoration of the monarchy, Filmer wrote a solid defense of the divine right of kings which in turn prompted John Locke to write a riposte - part 1 of the <i>Two Treatises of Government</i>.
Open the reader →David Ricardo
The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 5 Speeches and Evidence
<i>Speeches and Evidence</i> contains the texts of Ricardo’s numerous speeches. It consists of his speeches given in the House of Commons and evidentiary advocacies before Parliamentary committees. The introduction provides insightful context to the circumstances and events that preceded Ricardo’s appointment as a Member of Parliament and describes his subsequent influence and role on various committees.
Open the reader →David Ricardo
The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 3 Pamphlets and Papers 1809-1811
This volume focuses on Ricardo’s shorter essays printed in the <i>Morning Chronicle,</i> which deal with his thoughts on the inflationary monetary policy of the Bank of England and the Bullion Crises. In these essays, the genesis of Ricardo’s theory of "hard money" emerges as a tool to hedge against inflation using metallic currency. The Bullion Committee, created by the House of Commons in 1819, adopted his recommendations. His writings here gave rise to the currency school of hard money.
Open the reader →Pierre Bayle
A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel, Luke 14.23, ‘Compel Them to Come In, That My House May Be Full’
In this defence of religious toleration, Bayle discusses the words attributed to Jesus Christ in Luke 14:23, “And the Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be full.” Bayle contends that the word compel cannot mean “force.” From this perspective, he constructs his doctrine of toleration based on the singular importance of conscience.
Open the reader →John A. Hobson
Imperialism: A Study
A classic analysis of imperialism by a British economic journalist who explores the way in which mercantile interests in the home country can manipulate the power of the state in order to get benefits in the colony.
Open the reader →Mary Wollstonecraft
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects
Wollstonecraft first defended the rights of men in response to Burke’s pamphlet on the French Revolution, then turned to the rights of woman a couple of years later. It is one of the key texts of modern feminist thought.
Open the reader →Antoine Louis Claude, Comte Destutt de Tracy
A Treatise on Political Economy
An important work in the development of French liberal thought during the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic period. Thomas Jefferson was very impressed with his writings and had them translated in English.
Open the reader →Adam Smith
An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Cannan ed.), vol. 2
Cannan’s justly famous early 20th century edition of Smith’s Wealth of Nations with his introduction and notes.
Open the reader →William Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s Sonnets And A Lover’s Complaint
A good modern edition of all of Shakespeare’s sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint accompanied by a scholarly introduction and notes on the poems.
Open the reader →Nassau William Senior
Political Economy (1850 ed.)
This work is a summary statement of the nature of economic thought by one of the leading theorists of the English classical school in the mid-19th century.
Open the reader →David Ricardo
The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 1 Principles of Political Economy and Taxation
_On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation_ provides analysis of the allocation of money between capitalists, landowners, and agricultural workers in Britain. Through this analysis, Ricardo came to advocate free trade and oppose Britain’s restrictive “Corn laws.” Here are his classic commentaries on certain points of contention and divergence with the political economic writings of Adam Smith and T. R. Malthus.
Open the reader →Plato
The Dialogues of Plato, vol. 1 (Charmides, Lysis, Laches, Protagoras, Euthydemus, Cratylus, Phaedrus, Ion, Symposium)
Volume 1 (with 9 dialogues) of a 5 volume edition of Plato by the great English Victorian Greek scholar, Benjamin Jowett. The scholarly apparatus is immense and detailed. The online version preserves the marginal comments of the printed edition and has links to all the notes and comments provided by Jowett.
Open the reader →Michel de Montaigne
Essays of Montaigne, Vol. 1
Volume 1 of a 10 volume collection of Montaigne’s famous essays in the 17th century English translation by Charles Cotton.
Open the reader →John Milton
Areopagitica (1644) (Jebb ed.)
This is Milton's famous defense of freedom of speech and the press, in an edition based upon Sir Richard Jebb’s lectures at Cambridge in 1872, with extensive notes and commentaries. Mlton's work was a protest against Parliament’s ordinance to further restrict the freedom of print. Milton issued his oration in an unlicensed form and courageously put his own name, but not that of his printer, on the cover.
Open the reader →Ludwig M. Lachmann
Capital, Expectations, and the Market Process: Essays on the Theory of the Market Economy
This volume consists of 17 of Ludwig Lachmann’s most important papers published during the period 1940-73. Two of the articles appear here in translation for the first time. Prepared especially for this volume is a new essay about the present “crisis” in economic thought. Walter Grinder’s extended introduction analyzes Lachmann’s scholarly career in four countries and his overall intellectual development.
Open the reader →Francis W. Hirst
Free Trade and Other Fundamental Doctrines of the Manchester School
A collection of speeches and articles illustrating the broad range of views of the British classical liberals and free traders of the 19th century known as the Manchester School. They cover foreign policy, free trade, the repeal of the corn laws, war, colonial policy, education , and social reform. They were written by Richard Cobden, John Bright, Thomas Tooke, Joseph Hume, W.J. Fox, Milner Gibson, and William Molesworth. They were edited by Francis W. Hirst.
Open the reader →Yves Guyot
The Tyranny of Socialism
One of several books Guyot wrote attacking socialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In this volume, in the tradition of Bastiat, he criticises what he calls “socialistic sophisms,” socialistic legislation, strikes, subsidies to business, and the connection between militarism, protectionism, and socialism.
Open the reader →Desiderius Erasmus
The Complaint of Peace
The Reformation scholar Desiderius Erasmus portrays Peace visiting to earth to deliver her verdict on the human race. She chastises kings and princes, church leaders, noblemen and ordinary soldiers alike for betraying their Christian values by waging unjust and unnecessary wars. “This translation of the Querela Pacis of Erasmus is reprinted from a rare old English version. It is probably the 1802 reprint of the translation made by T. Paynell but published anonymously” (Publisher’s Preface).
Open the reader →Richard Cobden
The Political Writings of Richard Cobden, vol. 1
Vol. 1 of a two volume collection of the political writings of Richard Cobden which focuses on foreign policy, and war and peace. Vol. 1 contains “England, Ireland, and America” (1835), “Russia” (1836), and “1793 and 1853 in Three Letters” (1853), only the first two letters are in this volume. The thid letter is in vol. 2.
Open the reader →Frédéric Bastiat
Economic Harmonies (FEE ed.)
This is the translation by the Foundation for Economic Education of Bastiat’s longest and best known work *Economic Harmonies*. A new translation of this work by Liberty Fund is in progress. See the [Summary of the Bastiat Project](abc) for details.
Open the reader →John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton
The History of Freedom and Other Essays
Acton never completed his projected <i>History of Liberty</i>. The collection contains two chapters from this planned history - on liberty in antiquity and Christianity - and many book reviews where one can piece together Acton’s approach to the writing of such a history.
Open the reader →John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton
Lectures on the French Revolution (LF ed.)
Delivered at Cambridge University between 1895 and 1899, <i>Lectures on the French Revolution</i> is a distinguished account of the entire epochal chapter in French experience by one of the most remarkable English historians of the nineteenth century.
Open the reader →Herbert Spencer
Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative, Vol. 2
Volume 2 of a three volume collection of Spencer’s essays which cover political philosophy, sociology, science, and current affairs.
Open the reader →Thomas Robert Malthus
An Essay on the Principle of Population, vol. 1 [1826, 6th ed.]
Vol. 1 of the 6th expanded edition of <em>Essay on the Principle of Population.</em> In this work Malthus argues that there is a disparity between the rate of growth of population (which increases geometrically) and the rate of growth of agriculture (which increases only arithmetically). He then explores how populations have historically been kept in check.
Open the reader →James M. Buchanan
The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Vol. 2. (Public Principles of Public Debt: A Defense and Restatement)
Vol. 2 of *The Collected Works.* One of James M. Buchanan’s most important and influential books which is based on the then (1958) radical idea that the burden of debt is not borne by the current generation, but is shouldered in large part by generations still to come. Another copy of [this book](https://www.econlib.org/library/Buchanan/buchCv2Contents.html) can be found in HTML format at our sister website [Econlib](https://www.econlib.org/).
Open the reader →David Ricardo
The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 11 General Index
The last volume of this collection is a comprehensive index to the previous ten volumes of <i>The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo.</i>
Open the reader →David Ricardo
The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 10 Biographical Miscellany
This volume is a collection of personal correspondence and recollections that focus on Ricardo’s life outside of his political economic endeavors. These missives concern Ricardo's character, his amiable and generous nature, his successful business dealings, and his personal relationships. There are chapters on his entrance into the stock market as a mere teenager and records of his meteoric climb within the financial community to an extremely successful station.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXX - Writings on India
Vol. 30 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s longer writings on India. Some parliamentary speeches and newspaper articles can be found in other volumes.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIX - Public and Parliamentary Speeches Part II July 1869 - March 1873
Vol. 29 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s electoral and parliamentary speeches from 1869-1873, including women’s suffrage education, and land reform. It also includes an essay by Helen Taylor on War and Peace.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXVII - Journals and Debating Speeches Part II
Vol. 27 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s diaries of his walking tours 1827-32, a diary from 1854 and other material from the early 1820s.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXVI - Journals and Debating Speeches Part I
Vol. 26 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s juvenile writings from the 1820s such as journals, notebooks, and debating speeches.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXV - Newspaper Writings December 1847 - July 1873 Part IV
Vol. 25 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s newspaper articles from 1847-1873, including a number of electoral reform and the revolution in Hungary.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIV - Newspaper Writings January 1835 - June 1847 Part III
Vol. 24 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s newspaper articles from 1835-1847, including many on the Bank Charter and the Condition of Ireland.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II
Vol. 23 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s newspaper articles from 1831-1834, including many on the French Revolution of 1830 and a number on the Poor Law Report.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVII - The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill 1849-1873 Part IV
Vol. 17 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s letters written between 1869-1873.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVI - The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill 1849-1873 Part III
Vol. 16 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s letters written between 1865-1868.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XV - The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill 1849-1873 Part II
Vol. 15 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s letters written between 1856-1864.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XIV - The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill 1849-1873 Part I
Vol. 14 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s letters written between 1849-1855.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XIII - The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812-1848 Part II
Vol. 13 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s letters written between 1838-1848 with an Introdcution by F.A. Hayek.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XII - The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812-1848 Part I
Vol. 12 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s letters written between 1812-1837.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XI - Essays on Philosophy and the Classics
Vol. 11 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains a number of Mill’s essays on philosophy, Plato, Aristotle, and the history of Greece.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume VIII - A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive Part II
Vol. 8 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Part 2 of Mill’s System of Logic. It contains chapters on fallacies, methodology of the social sciences, and the science of history.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume VII - A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive Part I
Vol. 7 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Part 1 of Mill’s System of Logic. It contains chapters on reasoning, induction, the laws of nature, causation, and disbelief.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume VI - Essays on England, Ireland, and the Empire
Vol. 6 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains a number of Mill’s essays on contemporary political issues, including his essay Reorganization of the Reform Party.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume IV - Essays on Economics and Society Part I (Essays on Unsettled Qs)
Vol. 4 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains a number of Mill’s essays on economic topics, including the collection Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume IX - An Examination of William Hamilton’s Philosophy
Vol. 9 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s book on William Hamilton’s philosophy.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXXII - Additional Letters of John Stuart Mill
Vol. 32 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains letters by Mill which were left out of earlier volumes and a full list of correspondents, and of persons and works cited in the letters.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXXI - Miscellaneous Writings
Vol. 31 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s writings on botany and reviews of medical books. It also contains his edition of Bentham’s Rationale of Judicial Evidence and his father’s Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XX - Essays on French History and Historians
Vol. 20 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains a number of Mill’s essays and book reviews about French history.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XIX - Essays on Politics and Society Part 2 (Considerations on Rep. Govt.)
Vol. 19 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains a number of Mill’s essays on politics and his book *Considerations on Representative Government.*
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume V - Essays on Economics and Society Part II (Chapters of Socialism)
Vol. 5 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains a number of Mill’s essays on economic topics, including the Chapters on Socialism.
Open the reader →David Ricardo
The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 9 Letters 1821-1823
The letters in this volume continue to cover Ricardo’s correspondence while a member of the House of Commons and provide subtle refinements and elaborations to his political economic thoughts. This volume includes a complete index to volumes 6 through 9, which contain Ricardo’s correspondence. The index is cross-referenced by name and topic. Ricardo’s letters remain a permanent legacy to the development of his many contributions to the political economy and a record of his endearing friendships.
Open the reader →Dante Alighieri
The Divine Comedy, vol. 3 (Paradiso) (Bilingual edition)
Dante’s masterwork is a 3 volume work written in Italian rather than Latin. It embraces human individuality and happiness in a way which suggests the beginning of the Renaissance. This is a bilngual Italian and English edition. Vol. 3 Paradiso (Heaven) shows the beauty and the rewards awaiting those who have been blessed by God.
Open the reader →David Ricardo
The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 8 Letters 1819-June 1821
This period of Ricardo’s life witnessed his entrance into Parliament as a member of the House of Commons where he became an influential advocate of free trade through his opposition to Britain’s restrictive “Corn laws.” These letters preserve the intellectual give-and-take on many of the political economic issues of Ricardo’s age. The list of these eminent correspondents include: T. R. Malthus (1766-1834). Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), and Jean Baptiste-Say (1762-1832).
Open the reader →David Ricardo
The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 7 Letters 1816-1818
Volume 7 is the second volume of four volumes comprising the collection of Ricardo's letters. It spans the years of Ricardo’s life from 1816 to 1818. This period saw the development and initial defense of his most influential work <i>On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation.</i>
Open the reader →David Ricardo
The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 6 Letters 1810-1815
Volume 6 is the introductory volume to the four volumes containing relevant letters between Ricardo and many influential thinkers of his age. Many of these letters influenced the development of Ricardo’s ideas on political economy. The letters within this volume span the years of Ricardo’s economic thought throughout 1814 and 1815.
Open the reader →David Ricardo
The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 4 Pamphlets and Papers 1815-1823
This volume contains a collection of assorted short essays written for publication in the latter part of David Ricardo’s life from 1815 to 1823. These essays include: An Essay on the Influence of a low Price of Corn on the Profits of Stock (1815), Proposals for the Economical and Secure Currency (1816), Funding System (1820), On Protection to Agriculture (1822), and Plan for the Establishment of a National Bank.
Open the reader →David Ricardo
The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 2 Notes on Malthus
David Ricardo and T. R. Malthus were friends despite a contentious divergence of opinion on many political economic issues. This volume contains the formal remnants of their differences. Ricardo analyzes, issue-by-issue, his points of divergence to Malthus’s *Principles of Political Economy* Malthus’s contributions to political economics generally concern his bleak forecast that a geometrically growing population would surpass the arithmetically growing capacity of essential natural resources.
Open the reader →Michel de Montaigne
Essays of Montaigne, Vol. 2
Volume 2 of a 10 volume collection of Montaigne’s famous essays in the 17th century English translation by Charles Cotton.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume II - The Principles of Political Economy with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy (Books I-II)
Vol. 2 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Part 1 of Mill’s Principles of Political Economy.
Open the reader →Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay
Miscellaneous Writings, vol. 1
The first volume of a two volume collection of Macaulay’s essays. The first volume contains his essays from Knight’s *Quarterly Magazine* written during the mid-1820s. The second volume contains essays published in the *Edinburgh Review* in the 1830s and 1840s; in the *Encyclopedia Britannica* in the 1850s; and miscellaneous poems and inscriptions.
Open the reader →Titus Livius (Livy)
The History of Rome, Vol. 4
Vol. 4 of Livy’s History of Rome from its founding to the reign of Augustus.
Open the reader →William Godwin
An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. I.
Godwin’s best known work of political theory. Written in the early years of the French Revolution before the Terror had begun, Godwin provides a devastating critique of unjust government institutions and optimistically proposes that individuals not the state can best provide for their needs. He believed that political change could best be brought about gradually and as a result of free discussion in small communities. This work has inspired many generations of radical thinkers.
Open the reader →Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 7 (Society and Solitude)
Vol. 7 of the 12 volume Fireside edition of the works of Emerson.
Open the reader →Dante Alighieri
The Divine Comedy, Vol. 2 (Purgatorio) (Bilingual edition)
Dante’s masterwork is a 3 volume work written in Italian rather than Latin. It embraces human individuality and happiness in a way which suggests the beginning of the Renaissance. This is a bilingual Italian and English edition. Vol. 2 Purgatorio (Purgatory) shows how souls might be perfected in a painful process which leads ultimately to one’s moral development and improvement.
Open the reader →Dante Alighieri
The Divine Comedy, Vol. 1 (Inferno) (Bilingual edition)
Dante’s masterwork is a 3 volume work written in Italian rather than Latin. It embraces human individuality and happiness in a way which suggests the beginning of the Renaissance. This edition contains a side-by-side English and Italian version. Vol. 1 (Inferno (Hell) describes what happens to the souls of the wicked who are condemned to suffer the torments of Hell.
Open the reader →Thomas Robert Malthus
An Essay on the Principle of Population, 2 vols. [1826, 6th ed.]
This is the 6th expanded edition of <em>Essay on the Principle of Population.</em> In this work Malthus argues that there is a disparity between the rate of growth of population (which increases geometrically) and the rate of growth of agriculture (which increases only arithmetically). He then explores how populations have historically been kept in check.
Open the reader →Herbert Spencer
The Principles of Ethics, 2 vols.
A two volume work which Spencer considered to be his finest work. In volume I he covers the data of ethics, the inductions of ethics, and the ethics of individual life. In the second volume he covers the ethics of social life (or justice), negative beneficence, positive beneficence, and a number of topics in several appendices (such as Kant’s theory of rights, land ownership, and animal rights).
Open the reader →Herbert Spencer
Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative, 3 vols.
A three volume collection of Spencer’s essays which cover political philosophy, sociology, science, and current affairs.
Open the reader →Thomas Paine
The Writings of Thomas Paine, 4 vols.
A 4 volume collection of the works of Thomas Paine.
Open the reader →Voltaire
The Works of Voltaire. A Contemporary Version, in 21 vols.
A 21 volume collected works of the writings of Voltaire with a biographical volume by the English Liberal MP John Morley and notes by the 18th century Scottish novelist Tobias Smollett.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
The Subjection of Women (1878 ed.)
Mill took up the cause of women’s rights in the face of much opposition from his colleagues in Parliament. In addition to his parliamentary speeches on the matter his most extended defense of the right of women to own property and to participate in political life was *The Subjection of Women*.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
On Liberty and The Subjection of Women (1879 ed.)
Mill had been somewhat coy about publishing *The Subjection of Women* during his lifetime because he feared the condemnation of his peers for daring to apply the general notions of individual liberty which he had clearly spelled out in *On Liberty* to the particular case of women. So he withheld publication until just before his death. It was left to an enterprising publisher after the author’s death to recognize the connection between the two works and to combine them in a new edition.
Open the reader →David Hume
Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals
Two of David Hume’s most important works of moral philosophy, epistemology, and psychology which together were supposed to make up Hume’s “science of man”. They are a revised version of his earlier work <i>A Treatise of Human Nature</i> which appeared in 1739.
Open the reader →Herbert Spencer
The Man versus the State (1885 ed.)
A facsimile edition of the four essays that Spencer published as <i>The Man Versus the State</i> in 1884. Spencer develops various specific disastrous ramifications of the wholesale substitution of the principle of compulsory cooperation - the statist principle - for the individualist principle of voluntary cooperation.
Open the reader →Herbert Spencer
The Data of Ethics
Spencer continues his exploration of individualist moral philosophy in this book. He examines the nature of human conduct, different ways in which conduct might be judged, the conflict between egoism and altruism, and what he calls absolute ethics.
Open the reader →John Bates Clark
The Distribution of Wealth: A Theory of Wages, Interest and Profits
This 1908 edition is the third reprinting of Clark’s path-breaking, yet widely under-read, 1899 textbook, in which he developed marginal productivity theory and used it to explore the way income is distributed between wages, interest, and rents in a market economy.
Open the reader →Henry George
Progress and Poverty
Perhaps Henry George’s best known work in which he examines the casuses of poverty and, among other things, blames it on the monopoly of land ownership.
Open the reader →Eli F. Heckscher
The Continental System: An Economic Interpretation
The great Swedish economist, Heckscher’s, first effort to show how interventionist economic policies fail. He began with this 1918 study of Napoleon’s effort to wage economic warfare against the British known as The Continental System. His later and better known work in a similar vein was his 2 volume study of the system of economic regulation in the 18th century known as Mercantilism.
Open the reader →Yves Guyot
Where and Why Public Ownership has Failed
One of several books Guyot wrote attacking socialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In this volume, drawing upon his experience as the French Minister for Public Works, Guyot discusses the differences between public and private trading, with reference to railways, trams, public housing, and various government monopolies, and examines the negative financial, administrative, political, and social consequeces, such as disorder, corruption, and waste.
Open the reader →Thomas Hodgskin
Travels in the North of Germany, 2 vols.
A two volume work in which Hodgskin describes in great detail the economic, political, legal, and social conditions he observed in his travels across northern Germany.
Open the reader →Thomas Hodgskin
A Lecture on Free Trade, in connexion with the Corn Laws
An example of one of Hodgskin’s popular lectures to a working class audience, this time on the benefits of free trade.
Open the reader →Thomas Hodgskin
Popular Political Economy. Four lectures delivered at the London Mechanics Institution
Thomas Hodgskin, an officer in the British Navy who later worked for *The Economist,* was one of the earliest popularizers of economics for audiences of non-economists. He gave lectures on free trade, the corn laws, and labor to “mechanics institutes” (adult education groups). Hodgskin passionately cared about the concerns of laborers. His discussions of the labor theory of value followed up on David Ricardo and pre-dated John Stuart Mill’s expositions on similar themes.
Open the reader →William Stanley Jevons
Money and the Mechanism of Exchange
Jevons’s formative 1875 classic work came into print at the height of interest in gold, silver, and international monetary standards. Of particular interest are the clear discussions of Gresham's Law (Ch. VIII), competitively supplied money (Ch. VII), and fractional-reserve- and Free-banking (Ch. XVII-XVIII and XXIV). Jevons is best known for his work on marginal utility, which he describes with customary succinctness in the book.
Open the reader →William Stanley Jevons
The Coal Question; An Inquiry concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of our Coal-mines
A warning that Britain would face rising costs for coal as other nations industrialized and that this would have a deep impact on the British economy and way of life.
Open the reader →William Stanley Jevons
Methods of Social Reform and Other Papers
A collection of Jevon’s papers and addresses on topics as diverse as public libraries and museums, trade societies and partnerships, married women in factories, cruelty to animals, and the post office and railways.
Open the reader →Thomas Mackay
A Policy of Free Exchange. Essays by Various Writers on the Economical and Social Aspects of Free Exchange and Kindred Subjects
The companion volume to *A Plea for Liberty* which continued the argument against the Fabian Socialists and for a policy of strict non-intervention in the economy by the government.
Open the reader →Thomas Robert Malthus
An Essay on the Principle of Population [1798, 1st ed.]
This is the first edition of Malthus’s _Essay on the Principle of Population._ In this work Malthus argues that there is a disparity between the rate of growth of population (which increases geometrically) and the rate of growth of agriculture (which increases only arithmetically). He then explores how populations have historically been kept in check.
Open the reader →Jane Haldimand Marcet
Essays (Glamorgan Pamphlets)
These economic fairy tales and parables published by Jane Marcet in the 1830s charm with their light-hearted wit. IMarcet illustrates such topics as the economics of wages and income distribution. The *John Hopkins* series reprinted and expanded on the popular earlier *Glamorgan Essays.* Marcet originally earned her fame by writing about chemistry for the layman (in the process influencing Michael Faraday), and branched out with equal success to other fields, including primarily economics.
Open the reader →Ludwig von Mises
Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (FEE ed.)
The first comprehensive treatise on economics written by a leading member of the modern Austrian school of economics.
Open the reader →Simon Newcomb
The A B C of Finance
A popularization of economic ideas which Newcomb wrote for *Harpers Magazine.* Another copy of [this book](https://www.econlib.org/library/Newcomb/nwcABC.html) can be found in HTML format at our sister website [Econlib](https://www.econlib.org/).
Open the reader →Frank H. Knight
Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit
This careful work investigating the nature of profits also includes material on the institutional structure of firms and the distribution of residuals, particularly in Part III, Chapter IX-X. It contains an interesting discussion of the difference between risk and uncertainty. [Read the Liberty Classic](https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2018/Emmettriskuncertaintyprofit.html) on this title from Econlib
Open the reader →Frank H. Knight
"Cost of Production and Price Over Long and Short Periods"
A pioneering artcile on the cost of production which was pubished in one of the leading professional economics journals in the early 20th century.
Open the reader →James Mill
Elements of Political Economy
James Mill’s work offers excellent summaries of diminishing marginal returns in Chapter II, of comparative advantage in Chapter III, Section V, of the quantity theory of money and the market for foreign exchange in Chapter II, and of the aggregate budget constraint in Chapter IV. Mill’s exposition of the labor theory of value is so compelling and simple that it still represents a logic so apparently correct that students and laymen alike easily lapse into it.
Open the reader →Friedrich August von Hayek
Toward Liberty: Essays in Honor of Ludwig von Mises, vol. 1
Volume 1 of a 2 volume collection of essays by leading classical liberals and supporters of the free market from around the world who joined together to celebrate Mises’ accomplishments on behalf of liberty.
Open the reader →Ludwig von Mises
"Finance and Banking in the Austrian Empire and the Republic of Austria"
The 11th edition of the <i>Encyclopedia Britannica</i> was the last edition which appeared before the First World War destroyed the old liberal order in Europe. The next edition, the 12th, reproduced the 11th edition with the addition of 4 supplementary volumes which covered the war and its immediate aftermath. This article is part of the supplementary volumes.
Open the reader →Sir Dudley North
Discourses Upon Trade
North ’s <i>Discourses upon Trade</i> is one of the earliest attempts to theorize as a whole the workings of a market economy in England. There are two discourses: one concerning "the abatement of interest" and the other on "coyned money".
Open the reader →George Bernard Shaw
Fabian Essays in Socialism
This collection of essays by the so-called "Fabian Socialists" (who advocated socialism by means of gradual political and economic reform instead of by revolution as preferred by the Marxists) prompted a vigorous defense of laissez-faire economic policies by leading English classical liberals in the early 1890s. Two volumes of these rebuttals of Fabian socialism were edited by Thomas Mackay. The 3 volumes together make interesting reading.
Open the reader →Eugen Richter
Pictures of the Socialistic Future
*Pictures of the Socialistic Future* is Richter’s satire of what would happen to Germany if the socialism espoused by the trade unionists, social democrats, and Marxists was actually put into practice. It is thus a late 19th century version of Orwell’s <i>1984,</i> minus the extreme totalitarianism which Orwell had witnessed in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia but which was still inconceivable to 19th century liberals.
Open the reader →Daniel Webster
State Papers and Speeches on the Tariff
Taussig has collected speeches and reports by Alexander Hamilton, Albert Gallatin, R.J. Walker, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster on the issue of free trade and tariffs. He used these documents in his course at Harvard University on the History of the Tariff.
Open the reader →Arthur Young
Arthur Young’s Travels in France during the Years 1787, 1788, 1789
Arthur Young was an 18th century pioneer in the detailed observation of economic conditions in the countryside and the collection of statistical data relating to agriculture. He was extraordinarily lucky in being in France on the eve of and during the early part of the French Revolution. In his dairies he gives close observations of the social, political and economic conditions of the French countryside as it was convulsed by violent revolution.
Open the reader →Wordsworth Donisthorpe
Individualism: A System of Politics
Donisthorpe provides a theory of politics from the individualist standpoint in the tradition of Herbert Spencer and Auberon Herbert. He also attacks the rise of socialism which he regards as the greatest threat to social progress.
Open the reader →Wordsworth Donisthorpe
Law in a Free State
A collection of essays by a radical individualist political thinker on a range of topics which he called "the hardest nuts to crack", in other words, topics which pushed the theory of individual liberty to its limits. He discusses questions of libel, of cruelty to animals, of copyright, of adulteration, of the relation of the sexes, of rights over land, and of nuisance
Open the reader →John Millar
Letters of Sidney, on Inequality of Property. To which is added, a Treatise of the Effects of War on Commercial Prosperity
Millar continues his critique of the war against France with letters to the Earl of Lauderdale.
Open the reader →John Millar
Letters of Crito, on the Causes, Objects, and Consequences, of the Present War
Millar writes letters to the Right Honourable Charles James Fox pointing out the harmful effects the war against France will have.
Open the reader →Henry Higgs
The Physiocrats: Six Lectures on the French Economistes of the 18th Century
The English historian of economic thought Higgs discusses iin a series of lectures given at the London School of Economics in 1896 the 18th century free market Physiocratic school, its origins, ideas, political and intellectual influence.
Open the reader →Richard Cantillon
Essay on the Nature of Trade in General (Higgs ed.)
Cantillon wrote one major work, *Essay on the Nature of Trade in General*, which was regarded by Jevons and Hayek as an important early contribution to the theory of marginal utility. It lay forgotten for over 100 years until Jevons rediscovered it in the late 19th century. This edition is a bi-ligual French and English version with essays on the significance of Cantillon by Higgs and Jevons.
Open the reader →Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
Capital and Interest: A Critical History of Economic Theory
Ludwig von Mises described this as a “monumental work” which “is the most eminent contribution to economic theory”. He further stated that “a man not perfectly familiar with all the ideas advanced in theses three volumes has no claim whatever to the appellation of an economist”. It is a work which made the modern intertemporal theory of interest rates possible.
Open the reader →Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
The Positive Theory of Capital
The second volume of Boehm-Bawerk’s monumental three volume work on <em>Capital and Interest.</em>
Open the reader →John Elliot Cairnes
The Character and Logical Method of Political Economy
The book consists of lectures Cairnes gave to explain the basic principles behind classical economics.
Open the reader →James M. Buchanan
The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan in 20 vols.
*The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan* is a twenty-volume series published by Liberty Fund that includes ten monographs and all of the important journal articles, papers, and essays that Buchanan has produced in a distinguished career spanning more than half a century. Liberty Fund has the electronic rights to volumes 2-10.
Open the reader →Jeremy Bentham
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
One of Bentham’s most important works in which he develops his theory of ‘utility’ at considerable length and discusses how the penal system (especially punishments) could be based on this theory. One of the founding texts of the 19th century school of Utilitarianism. Another copy of [this book](https://www.econlib.org/library/Bentham/bnthPML.html) can be found in HTML format at our sister website [Econlib](https://www.econlib.org/).
Open the reader →Charles F. Bastable
Public Finance
One of the first textbooks ever written on the subject, and still eminently readable, with clear organization, definitions and explanations. The taxation of income, capital, imports, consumption goods, etc., and the effects on wages, rents, profits, production, and consumption are major topics, along with the government’s budget constraints.
Open the reader →Mary Wollstonecraft
An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution and the Effect it Has Produced in Europe
An optimistic and rationalist account of the French Revolution based upon first-hand, eyewitness experiences. It was intended to defend the Revolution against critics like Burke. Wollstonecraft explained the violent excesses of the Revolution as an over-reaction caused by the degraded character of the French people which was in turn the result of the despotism of the old regime.
Open the reader →Ambrose
On the Mysteries and the Treatise on the Sacraments
A volume with two of Ambrose's most influential writings: <i>On the Mysteries</i>, which are addresses given by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, to the newly-baptised in Easter week on the nature of the ceremonies and the doctrinal significance of baptism based upon the Old and New Testaments; and <i>Treatise on the Sacraments</i>, which are six sermons, also given during Easter week, on baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, the Lord's prayer, and prayer.
Open the reader →John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton
Lectures on the French Revolution (1910 ed.)
Delivered at Cambridge University between 1895 and 1899, <i>Lectures on the French Revolution</i> is a distinguished account of the entire epochal chapter in French experience by one of the most remarkable English historians of the nineteenth century.
Open the reader →John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton
Lectures on Modern History
These are the lectures given by the great English classical liberal historian, Lord Acton, in the academic years 1899-1901 at Cambridge University. It is a survey of modern history from the rise of the modern nation state to the American Revolution. The book also contains his “Inaugural Lecture” of 1895.
Open the reader →Desiderius Erasmus
The Manual of a Christian Knight
Erasmus’s very popular 16th century guide book on how to live a moral, Christian life while avoiding formal ritual and observances.
Open the reader →Samuel von Pufendorf
The Divine Feudal Law: Or, Covenants with Mankind, Represented
*The Divine Feudal Law* sets forth Pufendorf’s basis for the reunion of the Lutheran and Calvinist confessions. This attempt to seek a “conciliation” between the confessions complements the concept of toleration discussed in *Of the Nature and Qualification of Religion in Reference to Civil Society*. In both works Pufendorf examines the proper way to secure the peaceful coexistence of different confessions in a state.
Open the reader →Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 12 vols. (Fireside Edition).
The 12 volume Fireside edition of the works of Emerson.
Open the reader →Richard Cobden
The Political Writings of Richard Cobden, in 2 vols.
A two volume collection of the political writings of Richard Cobden which focuses on foreign policy, and war and peace.
Open the reader →Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay
The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, in 2 vols.
A two volume collection of Macaulay’s essays. The first volume contains his essays from Knight’s *Quarterly Magazine* written during the mid-1820s. The second volume contains essays published in the *Edinburgh Review* in the 1830s and 1840s; in the *Encyclopedia Britannica* in the 1850s; and miscellaneous poems and inscriptions.
Open the reader →Adam Smith
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Cannan ed.), in 2 vols.
Cannan’s justly famous early 20th century edition of Smith’s *Wealth of Nations* with his introduction and notes.
Open the reader →Titus Livius (Livy)
The History of Rome by Titus Livius, in 6 vols.
Livy's History of Rome begins with its founding and continues up to the reign of Augustus.
Open the reader →William Godwin
An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, in 2 vols.
Godwin’s best known work of political theory. Written in the early years of the French Revolution before the Terror had begun, Godwin provides a devastating critique of unjust government institutions and optimistically proposes that individuals not the state can best provide for their needs. He believed that political change could best be brought about gradually and as a result of free discussion in small communities. This work has inspired many generations of radical thinkers.
Open the reader →Michel de Montaigne
Essays of Montaigne, in 10 vols.
This edition presents a full ten-volume set of Michel de Montaigne’s Essays, translated into English in the 17th century by Charles Cotton and later revised by William Carew Hazlitt. Volumes 1 through 9 consist of the translated essays themselves, while Volume 10 contains Montaigne's Life and Letters, along with explanatory notes and an index
Open the reader →Dante Alighieri
The Divine Comedy, in 3 vols. (Langdon trans.)
Dante’s masterwork is a 3 volume work written in Italian rather than Latin. Vol. 1 (Inferno (Hell) describes what happens to the souls of the wicked who are condemned to suffer the torments of Hell. Vol. 2 Purgatorio (Purgatory) shows how souls might be perfected in a painful process which leads ultimately to one’s moral development and improvement. Vol. 3 Paradiso (Heaven) shows the beauty and the rewards awaiting those who have been blessed by God.
Open the reader →Plato
The Dialogues of Plato, in 5 vols (Jowett ed.)
A 5 volume edition of Plato by the great English Victorian Greek scholar, Benjamin Jowett. The scholarly apparatus is immense and detailed. The online version preserves the marginal comments of the printed edition and has links to all the notes and comments provided by Jowett.
Open the reader →David Ricardo
The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, 11 vols (Sraffa ed.)
This eleven-volume set of _The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo_ contains all of Ricardo’s published and unpublished writings, and provides great insight into the early era of political economics by chronicling Ricardo’s significant contributions to modern economics.
Open the reader →Francis Amasa Walker
Political Economy
One of the most widely used economics text books in 19th century America.
Open the reader →Edwin Cannan
"The Application of the Theoretical Apparatus of Supply and Demand to Units of Currency"
A pioneering article on currency which was pubished in one of the leading professional economics journals in the early 20th century.
Open the reader →Walter Bagehot
The Postulates of English Political Economy
Alfred Marshall, in his introduction to this book, argued that Bagehot provided a useful service to readers by removing the older and less understood Ricardian aspects from political economy and reworking them. Bagehot in turn in his introduction, thought that English political economy in the 100 years since Adam Smith had been misunderstood abroad by being exlsively identified with the cause of free trade and English business .
Open the reader →Walter Bagehot
Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market
When Walter Bagehot wrote <em>Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market,</em> in 1873, he did the unthinkable: In language as fresh and clear today as it was over 100 years ago, he respectfully dissected the Bank of England’s foundations, economic incentives, goals, and functions. In the process, he illuminated in a mere few hundred brilliant pages what distinguishes a Central Bank from a commercial bank, both on a daily basis and during crises such as bank panics and recessions.
Open the reader →Knut Wicksell
“The Influence of the Rate of Interest on Prices”
A paper read before the Economic Section of the British Association, 1906.
Open the reader →Jacob Viner
“Some Problems of Logical Method in Political Economy” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 25, no. 3, Mar. 1917, pp. 236–260.
Source: http://de.academic.ru/dic.nsf/dewiki/1410388
Open the reader →Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot
Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Riches (1898 ed.)
An 1898 edition of one of the more important works on economics before Adam Smith’s <i>Wealth of Nations</i>. It covers a broad range of topics including money, exchange, value, and capital investment in agriculture. Turgot discussed economic matters with Smith when Smith visited France in the 1760s.
Open the reader →Frank William Taussig
“Tariff”
The 11th edition of the <i>Encyclopedia Britannica</i> was the last edition which appeared before the First World War destroyed the old liberal order in Europe. The next edition, the 12th, reproduced the 11th edition with the addition of 4 supplementary volumes which covered the war and its immediate aftermath. This article was part of the 11th edition.
Open the reader →Nassau William Senior
Three Lectures on the Rate of Wages
Lectures given by Senior at the University of Oxford in 1830 to offer insights into the cause and solution of recent rioting by labourers in England.
Open the reader →Friedrich Schiller
Schiller’s Works Illustrated by Great German Artists, Vol. 1
A lavishly illustrated English edition of Schiller's poems and plays.
Open the reader →Leonard E. Read
“I, Pencil: My Family Tree” as told to Leonard E. Read, Dec. 1958
A charming story which explains how something as apparently simple as a pencil is in fact the product of a very complex economic process based upon the division of labor, international trade, and comparative advantage.
Open the reader →Gerald P. O’Driscoll
Economics as a Coordination Problem: The Contributions of Friedrich A. Hayek
A full-length assessment of the contributions to economics of Friedrich Hayek (Nobel Prize 1974). Hayek is unique for a number of reasons: because of his emphasis on the function of institutions in coordinating the various plans of individuals in the market; his attack on the expansionary policies of central banks which discoordinate the patterns of business investment and produce depressions; and his view about the possibility of rational economic calculation under socialism.
Open the reader →Israel M. Kirzner
The Economics of Ludwig von Mises: Toward a Critical Reappraisal
A collection of papers from a Symposium on the economics of Mises held at the 44th meeting of the Southern Economics Association in Atlanta, Georgia on 15 November, 1974. There are articles by Laurence Moss, Fritz Machlup, Israel Kirzner, Murray Rothbard, William Baumgarth, and Karen Vaughn.
Open the reader →Ludwig M. Lachmann
New Directions in Austrian Economics
A collection of papers which explores methodoogy, econometrics, social cost, monopoly theory, the supply of money, interest theory, and macroeconomics.
Open the reader →James M. Buchanan
L.S.E. Essays on Cost
A volume in the collection Studies in Economic Theory first published by the Institute for Humane Studies. This is a collection of essays written in the LSE opportunity cost tradition by scholars associated with the London School of Economics between 1937 and 1960. The papers are by Lionel Robbins, Hayek, Edwards, Coase, Thirlby, and Wiseman.
Open the reader →Israel M. Kirzner
The Foundations of Modern Austrian Economics
A volume in the collection *Studies in Economic Theory,* first published by the Institute for Humane Studies. This is a collection of papers given at a conference on Austrian economics in June 1974. They cover the uniqueness of the Austrian tradition, papers on praxeology and method, the history of Austrian school, capital theory, theory of money, inflation, and the market process.
Open the reader →John Stuart Mill
Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy (Ashley ed.)
_Principles of Political Economy, with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy_ was published in 1848 in London and was republished with changes and updates a total of seven times in Mill’s lifetime. The edition presented here is that prepared by W. J. Ashley in 1909, based on Mill’s 7th edition of 1870. The text provides English translations to several lengthy quotations originally quoted by Mill in French.
Open the reader →James Mill
Selected Economic Writings
A collection of Mill’s writings on economics, including his early essays on The Impolicy of a Bounty on the Exportation of Grain, Commerce Defended, and selections from his Elements of Political Economy and his History of British India.
Open the reader →Ludwig M. Lachmann
Capital and its Structure
A reprint of Lachmann’s 1956 classic of Austrian capital theory. In this book Lachmann shows how firms invest to position capital goods with one another, thus creating the complex capital structure. He shows how capital formation and adjustment is a continuous transformation which is immensely complex in its combinations and heterogeneous flow, and how it is capable of co-ordinating the ever-changing plans of individual participants.
Open the reader →Robert Franklin Hoxie
“Trade Unionism in the United States: General Character and Types”
A pioneering article on trade unions which was pubished in one of the leading professional economics journals in the early 20th century.
Open the reader →Friedrich August von Hayek
“Richard Cantillon”
Such was Hayek’s interest in the writings of Richard Cantillon, whom he believed had had a number of "Austrian insights", that he introduced the German translation which appeared in 1931. This is a translation of that introduction by Hayek.
Open the reader →Friedrich August von Hayek
“The Use of Knowledge in Society” (1945)
One of Hayek’s most important contributions to economic theory is his demonstration of the part prices play in disseminating widely diffused knowledge about consumer demand and the availablility of economic resources in order to make rational economic calculation possible.
Open the reader →Irving Fisher
“Dollar Stabilization”
The 11th edition of the <i>Encyclopedia Britannica</i> was the last edition which appeared before the First World War destroyed the old liberal order in Europe. The next edition, the 12th, reproduced the 11th edition with the addition of 4 supplementary volumes which covered the war and its immediate aftermath. This article is part of the supplementary volumes.
Open the reader →Frank A. Fetter
Capital, Interest, and Rent: Essays in the Theory of Distribution
Rothbard has collected Fetter’s journal articles and book reviews from the period 1897 to 1937 which cover the general topics of capital, interest, and rent.
Open the reader →Pieter de la Court
The True Interest and Political Maxims, of the Republic of Holland
A strong defence of the benefits of free trade and an open and tolerant society in which economic, social and religious liberties go hand in hand to make a vibrant society like late 17th century Holland. The book angered some clerics when it appeared but it nevertheless became of best seller.
Open the reader →Averroes (Ibn Rushd)
The Philosophy and Theology of Averroes
A collection of Averroes’ shorter works on religion, including the relation between religion and philosophy, the nature of eternal knowledge, and methods of argument and faith.
Open the reader →Richard Price
Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America
This essay proposed to retain America within the imperial structure by granting them the representation they lacked in Parliament through a general American Senate established to govern the “common concerns of the united states, and of judging and deciding between them, as a common Arbiter or Umpire.” The pamphlet went on to insist that civil societies may not “lawfully surrender their Civil Liberty, by giving up to any extraneous jurisdiction” the “power of legislating for themselves.”
Open the reader →Jacques Barzun
The Intellectual Portrait Series: A Conversation with Jacques Barzun
One of our most distinguished contemporary cultural historians,[ Jacques Barzun](https://oll.libertyfund.org/people/jacques-barzun) reflects on his long academic career and the movement of ideas he helped to shape through his seminal writings on liberal education in America. **[Watch the video version](https://youtu.be/hmust604F1k)** on our YouTube channel.
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