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Recommended reading

December 31, 2016

Daniel Bier, writing at Learn Liberty, has compiled a list of books he recommends.

I’ve removed his summaries for each of the books, so you may want to RTWT. It’s brief.

13 books every well-rounded libertarian should read

There are books that every libertarian should read and books every libertarian has read, but those circles don’t perfectly overlap. Here are 13 diverse book recommendations for well-rounded thinkers.

Economic Sophisms – Frederic Bastiat […]

Basic Economics + Applied Economics – Thomas Sowell […]

Beyond Politics: The Roots of Government Failure – Randy Simmons […]

The Problem of Political Authority – Michael Huemer […]

The Myth of the Rational Voter – Bryan Caplan […]

The Theory of Moral Sentiments – Adam Smith […]

The God of the Machine – Isabel Paterson […]

No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority – Lysander Spooner […]

Radicals for Capitalism – Brian Doherty […]

Democracy in America – Alexis de Tocqueville […]

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress – Robert Heinlein […]

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn […]

I’ve read about half of these. I give the list +1 for One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, for The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, and for anything written by Thomas Sowell, who once said, "It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." I’ll allow that Twain himself couldn’t have put that one any better.

But I give the list -1 for Paterson’s The God of the Machine. What an incredibly odd read that is. I found Paterson’s use of pseudo-technical terms to describe economic relationships both tedious and distracting. So I’d say read one of Russell Roberts’ books instead.

The older books on this list (Bastiat’s, Smith’s, and Spooner’s) are available for little or nothing to Kindle readers.

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