- Conceived in Liberty
-
Conceived in Liberty, authored by Murray Rothbard, is a 4-volume set covering the complete history of the United States from the pre-colonial period through the American Revolution.
Contents
Brief summary
Writing in the 1960s and 70s, Rothbard proposes that it is the struggle for human liberty that is at the heart of the history of the United States.
In this detailed narrative history (1,668 pages) of the struggle between liberty and political power, Rothbard offers an alternative to the two conventional interpretive devices. Against those on the right who see the American Revolution as a "conservative" event, and those on the left who want to invoke it as some sort of proto-socialist uprising, Rothbard views this period as a time of accelerating libertarian radicalism.
Rothbard also saw the American Revolutionaries as split into two camps. The first camp was those who wanted to demolish the British Empire's state apparatus in the colonies. The other camp wanted to keep the empire, but have Americans run it. (The state apparatus could be defined as the centralized institution of the crown such as the army, taxation, church establishment, commercial regulations and trade barriers, control of land development, banking, government debt, etc.) The first camp was the more libertarian, anti-federalist camp associated with Jefferson and Jackson. The second camp was the more federalist centralizing camp, associated with Hamilton and later the Whigs. They felt that in the right hands, the power of the centralized state could serve the public interest, an interest which neatly coincided with their interests. The conflict between these two factions is another part of understanding the revolution, its outcome, and its conservative and radical aspects.
Creation of the book
Rothbard said in a 1990 interview:[1]
"After the Volker Fund collapsed, I got a grant from the Lilly Endowment to do a history of the U.S., which I worked on from 1962-66. The original idea was to take the regular facts and put a libertarian assessment on everything. But once I started to work on it, I found many facts that had been left out, like tax rebellions. So it got longer and longer. It turned into the five-volume Conceived in Liberty, covering the Colonial period to the Constitution. I don't like to completely chart out my research in advance. I go step by step and it always seems to get longer than anticipated. After Arlington House published volume four, they went out of business. Volume five, on the Constitution, was written in longhand and no one can read my handwriting."
According to H.A. Scott Trask, "Rothbard began but never completed the fifth volume to his American history series Conceived in Liberty." Trask describes the fragment of the fifth volume that remains as "fascinating and brilliant."[2]
Contents of the 4 volumes
- Volume One covers the discovery of the Americas and the colonies in the 17th century (531 pages, including index).
- Volume Two covers the period of "salutary neglect" in the first half of the 18th century (294 pages, including index).
- Volume Three covers the advance to revolution, from 1760-1775 (373 pages, including index).
- Volume Four covers the political, military, and ideological history of the revolution and after (470 pages, including index).
Excerpts
- Volume I, Chapter 55, Pennsylvania's Anarchist Experiment: 1681-1690, Full text (slightly edited)
- Volume II, Chapter 33, The Growth of Libertarian Thought in Colonial America. Full text
- Volume II, Chapter 40, The American Colonies and the War. Online text (slightly edited)
Reviews
Publishing history
- Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute, January 15, 2000. Hardcover. 1668 pages. ISBN 0-945466-26-9.
- Liberty Tree Press, September 1989. Paperback. ISBN 0-945999-23-2.
- New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House Publishers:
- Volume I. 1975. ISBN 0-87000-262-7.
- Volume II. 1975. ISBN 0-87000-316-X.
- Volume III. 1976. ISBN 0-87000-343-7.
- Volume IV. 1979. ISBN 0-87000-352-6.
References
- ^ The Science of Liberty, 1990, http://www.mises.org/journals/aen/rothbard.asp
- ^ H.A. Scott Trask (August 08, 2003), Rethinking the Articles of Confederation, http://mises.org/daily/1296
Books by Murray Rothbard Man, Economy, and State (1962) • The Panic of 1819 (1962) • America's Great Depression (1963) • What Has Government Done to Our Money? (1963) • Power and Market (1970) • For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (1973) • Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays (1974) • Conceived in Liberty (1975-79) • The Ethics of Liberty (1982) • The Mystery of Banking (1983) • The Case Against the Fed (1994) • An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (1995) • A History of Money and Banking in the United States (2005) • The Complete Libertarian Forum (2006) • The Betrayal of the American Right (2007)
Categories:- Libertarianism in the United States
- History books about the United States
- Books by Murray Rothbard
- Austrian School publications
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