BOOKS RECOMMENDED BY LEONARD LIGGIO
BOOKS RECOMMENDED BY LEONARD LIGGIO
Human Action, Ludwig von Mises
Socialism, Ludwig von Mises
The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek
Capitalism and the Historians, F. A. Hayek
The Constitution of Liberty, F. A. Hayek
Law, Legislation and Liberty, F. A. Hayek
Freedom and the Law, Bruno Leoni
Federalism and Freedom, Felix Morley
Our Enemy, the State, Albert Jay Nock
The Birth of the Modern, Paul Johnson
Modern Times, Paul Johnson
The Myth of the Good and Bad Nations, Rene Wormser
The Great Powers and Eastern Europe, John Lukacs
Genesis of the World War, Harry Elmer Barnes
America Goes to War, Charles C. Tansill
Back Door to War, Charles C. Tansill
Mohammed and Charlemagne, Henri Pirenne
Economic and Social History of Europe, Henri Pirenne
The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, Michael Rostovtzeff
Some Twentieth-Century Historians, S. William Halperin
Six Historians (Thucydides, St. Augustine, Machiavelli, Voltaire, Ranke, Henry Adams), Ferdinand Schevill
Visions of Culture (Voltaire, Guizot, Burchkardt, Lamprecht, Huizinga, Ortega y Gasset), Karl J. Weintraub
The Dawn of a New Era, 1250-1453, Edward P. Cheyney
The Catholic Reformation, 1560-1610, Robert H. Lord
The Age of the Baroque, 1610-1660, Carl J. Friedrich
The Triumph of Science and Reason, 1660-1685, Frederick L. Nussbaum
A Generation of Materialism, 1871-1900, Carlton J. H. Hayes
The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, Jonathan D. Spence
Catholics and Unbelievers in Eighteenth Century France, Robert R. Palmer
The Age of the Democratic Revolution, Robert R. Palmer
Beyond the Enlightenment, Historians & Folklore in Nineteenth-Century France, Charles Rearick
The Servile State, Hilaire Belloc
The Reformation, Hilaire Belloc
Belloc: A Biographical Anthology, ed. Herbert van Thal
History of the Church of Christ, Henri Daniel-Rops
Making of Europe, Christopher Dawson
Religion and the Rise of Western Culture, Christopher Dawson
Stripping of the Altars, Eamon Duffy
For an Ontology of Morals: A Critique of Contemporary Ethical Theory, Henry B. Veatch
Two Logics, Henry B. Veatch
Thomist Realism & the Critique of Knowledge, Etienne Gilson
Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages, Etienne Gilson
God and Philosophy, Etienne Gilson
The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, Etienne Gilson
The Cypresses Believe in God, Jose Maria Gironella
The Intellectual History of Europe, Frederich Heer
The Road of Science and the Ways of God, Stanley Jaki
Enthusiasm, Ronald Knox
Now I See: Autobiograpy, Sir Arnold Lunn
Integral Humanism, Jacques Maritain
Ethica Thomistica, Ralph McInerny
Medieval Technology and Social Change, Lynn White, Jr.
The Levers of Riches, Joel Mokyr
Seven Story Mountain, Thomas Merton
We Hold These Truths, John Courtney Murray
Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, Michael Novack
Natural Law, Heinrich Rommen
Law and Revolution, Harold Berman
The Life of Christ, Fulton J. Sheen
Christianity and History, Herbert Butterfield
War and Human Progress, John U. Nef
Cultural Foundations of Industrial Civilization, John U. Nef
The Thirteenth, the Greatest of Centuries, William Thomas Walsh
The Education of Henry Adams, Henry Adams
The Virgin and the Dynamo, Henry Adams
Mont St. Michel and Chartres, Henry Adams
The American Language, H. L. Mencken
Up From Slavery, Booker T. Washington
Selected Essays, T. S. Elliot
Christ Stopped at Eboli, Carlo Levi
Robert E. Lee, Douglass Southall Freeman
The Twilight of Authority, Robert Nisbet
History of the Idea of Progress, Robert Nisbet
The Wisdom of Catholicism, Anton C. Pegis (ed.)
Force and Freedom: Reflections on History, Jacob Burckhardt
Lord Acton, Gertrude Himmelfarb
Lord Acton, Essays in the Liberal Interpretation of History, William H. McNeill (ed.)
Lord Acton, Essays on Church & State, Douglas Woodruff (ed.)
The Conquest of the United States by Spain, William Graham Sumner
Prophets on the Right, Ronald Radosh
Have You Ever Seen a Dream Walking, William F. Buckley (ed.)
Patriotic Gore, Edmund Wilson
Jefferson and His Time, Dumas Malone
The Power Broker, Robert A. Caro
American Conservatism in the Age of Enterprise (Sumner, Field, Carnegie), Robert Green McCloskey
Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius, John Neville Figgis
Reunion and Reaction: Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction, C. Vann Woodward
Snoring as a Fine Art
Here is that passage that explains why Albert Jay Nock called his book Snoring as a Fine Art:
Snoring should be regarded as a fine art and respected accordingly. If this be admitted, I might suggest further that our civilization does not so regard it, as it should, and gives the practice no encouragement, but rather the contrary.
Consequently one might with reason think that there is too little snoring done—snoring with a purpose to guide it, snoring deliberately directed towards a salutary end which is otherwise unattainable—and that our society would doubtless be better off if the value of the practice were more fully recognized. In our public affairs, for instance, I have of late been much struck by the number of persons who professedly had something. The starry-eyed energumens of the New Deal were perhaps the most conspicuous examples; each and all, they were quite sure they had something. They had a clear premonition of the More Abundant Life into which we were all immediately to enter by the way of a Planned Economy. It now seems, however, that the New Deal is rapidly sinking in the same Slough of Despond which closed over poor Mr. Hoover’s head, and that the More Abundant Life is, if anything, a little more remote than ever before.
I do not disparage their premonition or question it; I simply suggest that the More Abundant Life might now be appreciably nearer if they had put enough confidence in their premonition to do a great deal less thinking, planning, legislating, organizing, and a great deal—oh yes, a very great deal—more snoring.
These essays were first put in book form in 1958.
Others esays include: “Life, Liberty, and …,” “Utopia in Pennsylvania,” “Advertising and Liberal Literature,” “Henry George,” “What the American Votes For,” “The Purpose of Biography,” “The King’s Jester: Modern Style,” “Alas, Poor Yorick,” “If Only,” “Epstean’s Law,” “Sunday in Brussels.”
Albert Jay Nock is one of the 20th century’s great writers and essayists, a thinker of immense power who was also a tremendous advocate of liberty. These essays are among his finest work.
