The Irrepressible Rothbard

by Murray N. Rothbard, Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. (Editor), Joann B Rothbard (Preface)

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Summing up the work of libertarian economist and historian Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995) and noting its stunning range, philosopher David Gordon once wondered "if there are really three, four, or five geniuses writing under his name." The lively essays collected in this book display one of those geniuses: Rothbard the journalist, cultural critic, political observer, and movement organizer. Even more remarkable, they represent just a fraction of what he wrote in his spare time, for just one publication, and in just the last few years of his life. His articles combined libertarian antigovernment economics, decentralist local patriotism, antiwar isolation, and a dissident/reactionary cultural outlook that saw the growth of government as the key to the loss of the Old Republic. He defended land-rights groups against environmentalists, citizen militias against gun grabbers, isolationists against imperialists, paleoconservatives against neoconservatives, populists against party regulars, anti-New World Order conspiracy theorists against the establishment, nationalists against internationalist planners, states' righters against libertarian centralists, the Christian Right against its own leadership, and much more. These essays show not only Rothbard's intellectual vigor but the complete joy with which he embraced life, and how his extreme optimism made even the most severe setbacks tolerable. He experienced great disappointments and great successes, but through it all he was heroic, undaunted, and irrepressible.

Genres: Politics, Economics, Philosophy, Nonfiction

452 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Murray Newton Rothbard was an influential American historian, natural law theorist and economist of the Austrian School who helped define modern libertarianism. Rothbard took the Austrian School's emphasis on spontaneous order and condemnation of central planning to an individualist anarchist conclusion, which he termed "anarcho-capitalism".

In the 1970s, he assisted Charles Koch and Ed Crane to found the Cato Institute as libertarian think tank.

Reviews

[Zachary Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fine collection of Rothbard essays from the early to mid 1990s, when he came very family into the paleo camp. I found the essays on foreign policy and nationality to be the highlight of the book, speaking as they do to a topic alomst universally ignored or else treated only very superficially by other libertarian writers.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a good place to start reading Rothbard. Instead, try 'For a New Liberty', 'Man, Economy, and State', & 'Power and Market'. Then, maybe, this book.

[Pedro Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely walk down memory lane for all Roth-heads.

[Andrew Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A racist, sexist, America-hating anti-semite and Saddam sympathizer