One other area of the booklist I’d like to explore are revisionist takes on supposedly ‘good’ events. Sure there a few revisionist takes on the New Deal and the earlier Progressive Era, but I’d like to see revisionist works on the ‘Glorious’ Revolution, for example.
Under American History I would add Tansill’s Backdoor to War, and under Economic History add Charles Adam’s For Good and Evil.
I think I put Adam’s book under history of civilization, but I’ll move it if you think it’s better where it is, thanks for the other suggestion.
A few more suggestions…
History of Civilization:
Cohn The Pursuit of the Millenium
Shafarevich The Socialist Phenomenon (hard to find but covers non-western socialist societies - Incas, Jesuit Paraguayans, etc.)
Keeley The War Before Civilization
Rosenberg & Birdzell How the West Grew Rich
American History:
Flemming The Illusion of Victory
And like it or not I also recommend a couple of neoconservative books for their factual content.
Max Boot The Savage Wars of Peace (Everyone needs be familiar with the career of Smedley Butler)
Joshua Muravchik Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism
And FWIW I second the recommend for Kolko’s book.
I would also like to add Wolfgang Schivelbush’s Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America,Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany. It’s quite interesting.
Oh, I’m sorry it happens to be already on the list.
I would put it as a mix between European and American History.
Thank you, I’ll add those tonight.
Yes. The reflexive labelling of the Medieval period as “the Dark Ages” has been begging for some critical analysis for a long time. What’s the origin of the term, anyway?
Updated again.
Frederic Sanborn, Roosevelt is frustrated in Europe – Roosevelt makes war in Europe
Merchants of Death – two socialists tell how laissez faire arms manufacturers make markets for their products
Michael Pearson, The Sealed Train – the one and only history of the bolshevik revolution
Sidney Fay, The Origins of the World War – essential reading on the first war
John Turner, Shall it be again ? – socialist tells how Wilson manipulated the United States into first world war
Alternative history of the glorious revolution:
Sydney Fisher, The true history of the American Revolution – Cornwallis did everything he could NOT to defeat Washington and his army, the whole thing was a fluke, an unintended consequence
Charles Beard, An economic interpretation of the constitution of the United States – not libertarian, not even close
Gustavus Myers, History of the Supreme Court of the United States – alternative to libertarian view of history, Mr. Myers was marxist
Garet Garrett, People’s Pottage – a libertarian view on Roosevelt and his Deal
quote from the book:
"
There was probably no blueprint of the New Deal, nor even a clear drawing. Such things as the A.A.A. and the Blue Eagle were expedient inventions. What was concealed from the people was a general revolutionary intention–the intention, that is, to bring about revolution in the state, within the form of law. This becomes clear when you set down what it was the people thought they were voting for in contrast with what they got. They thought they were voting:
For less government, not more;
For an end of deficit spending by government, not deficit spending raised to the plane of a social principle, and,
For sound money, not as the New Deal afterward defined it, but as everybody then understood it, including Senator Glass, formerly Secretary of the Treasury, who wrote the money plank in the Democratic party platform and during the campaign earnestly denounced as akin to treason any suggestion that the New Deal was going to do what it did forthwith proceed to do, over his dramatic protest.
The first three planks of the Democratic Party platform read as follows:
We advocate:
"1. An immediate and drastic reduction of governmental expenditures by abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaus and eliminating extravagance, to accomplish a saving of not less than 25 per cent in the cost of Federal government…
"2. Maintenance of the national credit by a Federal budget annually balanced…
“3. A sound currency to be maintained at all hazards.”
Mr. Roosevelt pledged himself to be bound by this platform as no President had ever before been bound by a party document. All during the campaign he supported it with words that could not possibly be misunderstood. He said:
“I accuse the present Administration (Hoover’s) of being the greatest spending Administration in peace time in all American history–one which piled bureau on bureau, commission on commission, and has failed to anticipate the dire needs or reduced earning power of the people. Bureaus and bureaucrats have been retained at the expense of the taxpayer. … We are spending altogether too much money for government services which are neither practical nor necessary. In addition to this, we are attempting too many functions and we need a simplification of what the Federal government is giving to the people.”
This he said many times.
Few of the great majority that voted in November, 1932 for less Federal government and fewer Federal functions could have imagined that by the middle of the next year the extensions of government and the multiplication of its functions would have been such as to create serious administrative confusion in Washington, which the President, according to his own words, dealt with in the following manner:
“On July eleventh I constituted the Executive Council for the simple reason that so many new agencies having been created, a weekly meeting with the members of the Cabinet in joint session was imperative… Mr. Frank C. Walker was appointed as Executive Secretary of the Council.”
Fewer still could have believed that if such a thing did happen it would be more than temporary, for the duration of the emergency only; and yet within a year after Mr. Roosevelt had pledged himself, if elected, to make a 25 per cent cut in Federal government by “eliminating functions” and by “abolishing many boards and commissions,” he was writing, in a book entitled On Our Way, the following:
“In spite of the necessary complexity of the group of organizations whose abbreviated titles have caused some amusement, and through what has seemed to some a mere reaching out for centralized power by the Federal government, there has run a very definite, deep, and permanent objective.”
Few of the majority that voted in November 1932 for an end of deficit spending and a balanced Federal budget could have believed that the President’s second budget message to Congress would shock the financial reason of the country, or that in that same book, On Our Way, he would be writing about it in a blithesome manner, saying: “The next day, I transmitted the Annual Budget Message to the Congress. It is, of course, filled with figures and accompanied by a huge volume containing in detail all of the proposed appropriations for running the government during the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1934 and ending June 30, 1935. Although the facts of previous appropriations had all been made public, the country, and I think most of the Congress, did not fully realize the huge sums which would be expended by the government this year and next year; nor did they realize the great amount the Treasury would have to borrow.”
And certainly almost no one who voted in November, 1932 for a sound gold standard money according to the Glass money plank in the platform could have believed that less than a year later, in a radio address reviewing the extraordinary monetary acts of the New Deal, the President would be saying: “We are thus continuing to move toward a managed currency.”
The broken party platform, as an object, had a curious end. Instead of floating away and out of sight as a proper party platform should, it kept coming back with the tide. Once it came so close that the President had to notice it. Then all he did was to turn it over, campaign side down, with the words: “I was able, conscientiously, to give full assent to this platform and to develop its purpose in campaign speeches. A campaign, however, is apt to partake so much of the character of a debate and the discussion of individual points that the deeper and more permanent philosophy of the whole plan (where one exists) is often lost.”
At that the platform sank.
And so the first problem was solved. The seat of government was captured by ballot, according to law.
"
For anarchists, a should read:
The unknown revolution, 1917-1921 [by] Voline [i.e. V.M. Eikhenbaum; translated by Holley Cantine]. Foreword by Rudolf Rocker Eikhenbaum, Vsevolod Mikhailovich, 1882-1945; DK265 .E413
The writer claims that when it came to fighting, they (the social revolutionaries) won that civil war and not the bolsheviks
You know, I’m looking over this list, and I’m reminded of a thought that came to me when I was standing in the history section of my school library: As a history major, nearing the end of my college education, I really haven’t learned dick about history. So much out there, so little time, and so many useless core programs you have to suffer through. One of my professors once asked if you could really “learn” history through a class/lecture format. I couldn’t answer then, and I still don’t know.
Well, time to start reading. After I finish off Rothbard’s Betrayal of the American Right, perhaps it’s time to sharpen my knowledge of Europe…
So much there I want to read, particularly in the European History and History of Civilisation categories…yet, so little capital.
Reading Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn’s Monarchy and War in The Myth of National Defence got me very interested in European History. I NEED MORE NOURISHMENT.
When in the Course of Human Events by Charles Adams is an excellent American Civil War book.
Although I haven’t read, I 've read Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War, Pat cites A.J.P Taylor quite frequently and Taylor wrote The Origins of the Second World War.
That is definitely on my list.
AK Press has a huge history section, not all anarchist though: http://www.akpress.com/2005/topics/history
European and American History
Here, I`ve uploaded the two scans I have in English:
AJP Taylor - The Course of German History:
http://www.2shared.com/file/9227733/a3c4a4da/AJP_Taylor_-_The_Course_of_German_History.html
Larry Wolff - Inventing Eastern Europe:
http://www.2shared.com/file/9227910/265bae8/Larry_Wolff_Inventing_Easter_Europe.html
Good list! I highly recommend the DiLorenzo books. I’ve reviewed a few of them.
Book Review: Lincoln Unmasked
Book Review: The Real Lincoln
What are some history topics suitable for a libertarian interested in doing a PhD?
Depends on the subject matter you intend to study.
-
Europe
-
America
-Asia
And there are several subgroups under those.
For economic history. Why not Rothbard’s thesis?