History Reading List.

Miscellaneous History
1

Here is the list as of now, if any mistakes are there please let me know. Also, hyperlinks and other changes will be made soon (putting them in alphabetical order for exaple)

American History:

  • Johnson - Modern Times
  • Allitt - Catholic Intellectuals and Conservative Politics in America, 1950 - 1985
  • Genovese - Southern Front
  • Denson - Reassessing the Presidency
  • Quigley - The Ruses for War
  • Gutzman - The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution
  • Woods - Who Killed the Constitution
  • Adams - When in the Course of Human Events
  • Bradford - A Better Guide than Reason
  • Wood - The American Revolution
  • Danford - The Roots of Freedom
  • Denson - The Costs of War
  • Ely - War and Responsibiltiy
  • Fisher - Presidential War Power
  • Flynn - Forgotten Lessons
  • Flynn - The Roosevelt Myth
  • Higgs - The Resurgance of the Warfare State Since 9/11
  • Higgs - Crisis and Leviathan
  • Higgs - Depression, War and Cold War
  • Hummel - Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men
  • Johnson - A History of the American People
  • Masters - Lincoln the Man
  • McDonald - States Rights and the Union
  • Porter - War and the Rise of the State
  • Raimondo - Reclaiming the American Right
  • Rothbard - Conceived in Liberty
  • Rothbard - The Betrayal of the American Right
  • DiLorenzo - Hamilton’s Curse
  • Woods - We Who Dared Say No To War
  • DiLorenzo - How Capitalism Saved America
  • DiLorenzo - The Real Lincoln
  • DiLorenzo - Lincoln Unmasked
  • Tansill - Backdoor to War
  • Flemming - The Illusion of Victory
  • Boot - The Savage Wars of Peace
  • Nock - Jefferson

European History:

  • Kuehnelt-Leddihin - Leftism Revisited

  • Kuehnelt-Leddihin - The Menace of the Herd

  • Kuehnelt-Leddihin - Liberty or Equality

  • Pugh - A Companion to Modern European History, 1871 - 1945

  • Hoppe - Democracy: The God That Failed

  • Baker - Human Smoke

  • Conquest - The Great Terror

  • Evans - Rereading German History

  • Wood - The Russian Revolution

  • Service - A History of Modern Russia: From Nicholas II to Putin

  • Philips - Lenin and the Russian Revolution

  • Figes - A People’s Tragedy

  • Blackbourn - History of Germany, 1780 - 1918

  • Porter - Imperial Germany, 1890 - 1918

  • Williamson - The Third Reich

  • Chamberlain - The Scramble for Africa

  • Wright - Revolution and Terror in France, 1789 - 95

  • Wright - Napoleon and Europe

  • Price - The Revolutions of 1848

  • Curtoise - The Black Book of Communism

  • Hayek - The Road to Serfdom

  • Mises - Omnipotent Government

  • Jones - The European Miracle

  • Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago

  • Reismann - The Vampire Economy

  • Taylor - From Napoleon to the Second International

  • Taylor - The Habsburs Monarchy

  • Taylor - The Course of German History

  • Buchanan - Churchill, Hitler and the Unecessary War

  • Neilson - How Diplomats Make War

  • Taylor - The Origins of the Second World War

  • Taylor - The Struggle for Mastery in Europe

  • Gimpel - The Medieval Machine

  • Tuchman - A Distant Mirror

  • Taylor - Bismarck

  • Jones - The 1848 Revolutions

  • Kann - A History of the Hubsburg Empire

  • Jones - The French Revolution

  • Collier - Italian Unification 1820 - 1871

  • Porter - European Imperialism

History of Civilization:

  • Woods - How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
  • Adams - For Good and Evil
  • Burckhardt - Reflections on History
  • Creveld - The Rise and Decline of the State
  • Jasay - The State
  • Jouvenel - On Power
  • Jouvenel - Sovereignty
  • Rahe - Republics, Ancient and Modern
  • Palmer - A History of the Modern World
  • Cohn - The Pursuit of the Millenium
  • Keeley - The War Before Civilization
  • Rosenberg & Birdzell - How the West Grew Rich

Economic History:

  • Flynn - Men of Wealth
  • Dickson - Fiat Money Inflation in France
  • Friedman - Monetary History of the United States
  • Anderson - Economics and the Public Welfare
  • Galloway - Out of Work
  • Rothbard - America’s Great Depression
  • Rothbard - the Panic of 1819
  • Rothbard - The Case Against the Fed
  • Sennolz - Age of Inflation
  • Shaffer - In Restraint of Trade
  • Kolko - The Triumph of Conservatism
  • Selgion - Good Money
  • Rothbard - A History of Money and Banking in the United States
  • Hazlitt - From Bretton Woods to World Inflation
  • Sumner - A History of American Currency
  • Robbins - The Great Depression
  • Flynn - Forgotten Lessons
  • Folsom - New Deal or Raw Deal
  • Garrett - Salvos against the New Deal
  • Mises - Causes of the Economic Crisis
  • Powell - FDR’s Folly
  • Reed - Great Myths of the Great Depression
  • Schuettinger - Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Control
  • Slyvester - Kohler Strike
  • Hutt - The Economics of the Colour Bar
  • Gouge - A Short History of Money and Banking
  • Bresciani - Turroni - Economics of Inflation: A Study of Currency Depreciation in Post War Germany
  • Cleveland - Unmasking Sacred Lies
  • Beito - Taxpayers in Revolt
  • Schivelbusch - Three New Deals
  • Smiley - Rethinking the Great Depression
  • Oppenheimer - The State

History of Thought:

  • Huerta de Soto - The Austrian School
  • Skousen - Vienna and Chicago
  • Rothbard - An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought
  • Hulsmann - Mises: The Last Night of Liberalism
  • Hayek - Capitalism and the Historians
  • Selgin - Praxeology and Understanding
  • Laures - The Politically Economy of Juan de Mariana
  • Holcombe - 15 Great Austrian Economists
  • Chafuen - Faith and Liberty
  • Hutchinson - Early Economic Thought in Spain
  • Schumpeter - A History of Economic Analysis
  • Hayek - On The Trend of Economic Thinking
  • Clark - Commerce, Culture and Liberty
  • Kirzner - Mises
  • Raimondo - An Enemy of the State
  • Tracy - A Treatise on Political Economy
  • Raguet - Treatise on Currency and Banking
  • Cantillon - Essay on the Nature of Commerce in General
  • Say - Treatise of Political Economy
  • Condillac - Commerce and Government Considered in their Mutual Relationship
  • Hayek - Hayek on Hayek

Others I don’t know where to put are:

  • Engelbrecht - Merchants of Death
Hello and are there any decent History textbooks?
Looking for a Master
Best Books on United States History
Suggestions for high school book regarding colonial-constitution period
One Book High Schoolers Must Read
Reading lists
2

Well, that depends. What is our focus? History of business? Or government? Or just civilization?

Being American I could recommend some good American books, particular the revisionist works, but we need to narrow what topic we’re shooting for.

3

Anything really.

Some subsections I can imagine are:

  • American History
  • European History
  • History of Civilization
  • History of Economic Thought
  • History of Economics

And perhaps some others.

4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_Ferguson

This rights good stuff.

5

I remember Hoppe makes a note of him in Democracy: The God That Failed.

6

I would like to learn more about the history of economic thoughts. I’m sure there are soom good online articles somewhere. Sometimes Mises and the like wrote their treatises to counter some other schools of thought.

7

Well so far for US history I can think of Woods, DiLorenzo, Flynn, Rothard and I don’t really know any others.

8

Capitalism and the Historians edited by FA Hayek
An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought by Rothbard

That’s all I’ve got.

9

A great revisionist work on medieval history is The Medieval Machine by Jean Gimpel. The Medieval era was a time of weak states (weakened by the first independently powerful international church/temple in history). Gimpel’s work shows how that relative freedom made for a medieval industrial revolution that is ignored by almost all scholars, because it doesn’t fit with their view of the middle ages as a thousand-year superstitious dream in between the “progressive” classical and modern eras (when states were strong).

And a good follow-up to that would be A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman, which is about France and England in the 14th century, a time when the renascent state rose up again and destroyed much of the prosperity that had been built up by the Medieval industrial revolution in the preceding millennium.

10

Thank you very much, I’ll add these to list once it is compiled.

11

Articles and papers would also be appreciated.

12

Sure thing. A note to prospective readers… Medieval Machine reads like an excellent 250 page essay, making the case for the “medieval industrial revolution” thesis. A Distant Mirror reads almost like a historical novel, because in addition to telling the story of the century as a whole, Tuchman (a famously good writer) centers her narrative around one particular nobleman.

13

Of those that I’ve read, the three most important historical monographs by Rothbard are

  1. Origins of the Welfare State in America, in which Rothbard reveals the Progressive Movement to have evolved out of Great Revival Yankee pietism.
  2. World War I as Fulfillment, in which Rothbard reveals World War I to be a natural extension of the Progressive Movement
  3. The Federal Reserve as a Cartelization Device

Also fascinating is Liberty vs Power in Europe and England, an excerpt from his colonial American history Conceived in Liberty. And his discussions of the libertarian origins of Rhode Island and the proto-libertarian Quakers and Baptists from that work are thrilling to read.

And, in addition to the already mentioned, and hugely important History of Economic Thought, A History of Money and Banking in the United States is a must-read.

A book that Rothbard has cited, and which seems interesting (though I haven’t read it) is Gabriel Kolko’s The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History.

14

Yeah, I’d thought of Kolko already, I’ll see if I can’t compile an early list and have it up tonight, as always thank you for your contributions. Also if anybody has any more categories they would be appreciated.

A lot of the books I will be putting up in the first list would be based on reviews or summaries so they may not be perfect.

15

Oh, and how could I forget the definitive work on my favorite historical figure (as is evidenced by my avatar)?:

John Lilburne: The First English Libertarian

16

Ok, here’s what I’ve got so far for American history:

  • Rothbard - Conceived in Liberty
  • Higgs - Depression, War and Cold War
  • Higgs - Crisis and Leviathan
  • Higgs - Resurgance of the Warfare State Since 9/11
  • Flynn - Roosevelt Myth
  • DiLorenzo - How Capitalism Saved America
  • DiLorenzo - Hamilton’s Curse
  • DiLorenzo - The Real Lincoln
  • DiLorenzo - Lincoln Unmasked
  • Woods - The Politcally Incorrect Guide to American History
  • Woods - 33 Questions about American History You’re Not Supposed to Ask
  • Cleveland - Unmasking Sacred Lies

This is just a short list to begin with, I’ll add more later, there are also plenty of books missing because they’ll fall into other sections (economic history for example).

17

Ok, here’s what I’ve got so far, it’s still not nearly complete and a lot of these books aren’t libertarian or Austrian. Also, a lot of these catagories may not fit perfectly (for example a book that covers both American and European history, or a book that could be economic history), hyperlinks will be added when the list is done.

American History:

  • Johnson - Modern Times
  • Allitt - Catholic Intellectuals and Conservative Politics in America, 1950 - 1985
  • Genovese - Southern Front
  • Denson - Reassessing the Presidency
  • Quigley - The Ruses for War
  • Gutzman - The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution
  • Woods - Who Killed the Constitution
  • Adams - When in the Course of Human Events
  • Bradford - A Better Guide than Reason
  • Danford - The Roots of Freedom
  • Denson - The Costs of War
  • Ely - War and Responsibiltiy
  • Fisher - Presidential War Power
  • Flynn - Forgotten Lessons
  • Flynn - The Roosevelt Myth
  • Higgs - The Resurgance of the Warfare State Since 9/11
  • Higgs - Crisis and Leviathan
  • Higgs - Depression, War and Cold War
  • Hummel - Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men
  • Johnson - A History of the American People
  • Masters - Lincoln the Man
  • McDonald - States Rights and the Union
  • Porter - War and the Rise of the State
  • Raimondo - Reclaiming the American Right
  • Rothbard - Conceived in Liberty
  • Rothbard - The Betrayal of the American Right
  • DiLorenzo - Hamilton’s Curse
  • DiLorenzo - How Capitalism Saved America
  • DiLorenzo - The Real Lincoln
  • DiLorenzo - Lincoln Unmasked

European History:

  • Kuehnelt-Leddihin - Leftism Revisited
  • Kuehnelt-Leddihin - The Menace of the Herd
  • Kuehnelt-Leddihin - Liberty or Equality
  • Pugh - A Companion to Modern European History, 1871 - 1945
  • Hoppe - Democracy: The God That Failed
  • Baker - Human Smoke
  • Conquest - The Great Terror
  • Curtoise - The Black Book of Communism
  • Hayek - The Road to Serfdom
  • Mises - Omnipotent Government
  • Jones - The European Miracle
  • Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago
  • Reismann - The Vampire Economy
  • Taylor - From Napoleon to the Second International
  • Taylor - The Habsburs Monarchy
  • Taylor - The Course of German History
  • Buchanan - Churchill, Hitler and the Unecessary War
  • Taylor - The Origins of the Second World War
  • Taylor - The Struggle for Mastery in Europe
  • Gimpel - The Medieval Machine
  • Tuchman - A Distant Mirror
  • Taylor - Bismarck
  • Jones - The 1848 Revolutions
  • Kann - A History of the Hubsburg Empire
  • Jones - The French Revolution
  • Collier - Italian Unification 1820 - 1871
  • Porter - European Imperialism

History of Civilization:

  • Woods - How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
  • Adams - For Good and Evil
  • Burckhardt - Reflections on History
  • Creveld - The Rise and Decline of the State
  • Jasay - The State
  • Jouvenel - On Power
  • Jouvenel - Sovereignty
  • Rahe - Republics, Ancient and Modern
  • Palmer - A History of the Modern World

Economic History:

  • Flynn - Men of Wealth
  • Dickson - Fiat Money Inflation in France
  • Friedman - Monetary History of the United States
  • Anderson - Economics and the Public Welfare
  • Galloway - Out of Work
  • Rothbard - America’s Great Depression
  • Rothbard - the Panic of 1819
  • Rothbard - A History of Money and Banking in the United States
  • Hazlitt - From Bretton Woods to World Inflation
  • Sumner - A History of American Currency
  • Robbins - The Great Depression
  • Flynn - Forgotten Lessons
  • Folsom - New Deal or Raw Deal
  • Garrett - Salvos against the New Deal
  • Mises - Causes of the Economic Crisis
  • Powell - FDR’s Folly
  • Reed - Great Myths of the Great Depression
  • Schivelbusch - Three New Deals
  • Smiley - Rethinking the Great Depression
  • Oppenheimer - The State

History of Thought:

  • Huerta de Soto - The Austrian School
  • Skousen - Vienna and Chicago
  • Rothbard - An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought
  • Hulsmann - Mises: The Last Night of Liberalism
  • Hayek - Capitalism and the Historians
  • Laures - The Politically Economy of Juan de Mariana
  • Holcombe - 15 Great Austrian Economists
  • Chafuen - Faith and Liberty
  • Hutchinson - Early Economic Thought in Spain
  • Schumpeter - A History of Economic Analysis
  • Hayek - On The Trend of Economic Thinking
  • Clark - Commerce, Culture and Liberty

Others I don’t know where to put are:

  • Engelbrecht - Merchants of Death
18

James Nasmyth: Engineer; an autobiography http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/476
Samuel Smiles http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/s#a224
Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Mackay http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/24518

19

This list is a splendid resource. Thanks much, Giles.

20

Thank you, I’ve been meaning to do it for some time. I’m looking for more books now once I’m done with that I’ll begin adding audio tapes, articles and papers and then finally organizing it.

More books I’ll add tomorrow are:

Levine, Boldrin - Against Intellectual Monopoly

Armentano - Antitrust and Monopoly

Sumner - The Conquest of the United States by Spain

Acton - Lectures on Modern History

Maitland - The Selected Historical Essays of Maitland

Wood - The Uses of History

Blanning - The Pursuit of Glory

Zamoyski - Rites of Peace

Blanning - Oxford History of Modern Europe

Doherty - Radicals for Capitalism

Doyle - The Oxford History of the French Revolution

Cook - Routledge Companion to Early Modern Europe

Cook - Routledge Companion to European History Since 1763

Breuilly - Austria, Prussia and the Making of Modern Germany

Ferguson - Virtual History

Pipes - Property and Freedom