Is the book 1776 by David Mccullough any good?

Miscellaneous History
1

I have a copy of “1776” sitting on my bookshelf. Is it any good? Is the author relatively sane (i.e., not a raving mad communist)? Is the content solid (not blatantly lying about US history)?

Also, I just finished Road to Serfdom, Bastiat’s 'Economics Sophisms" and I’m partway through Menger’s Principles - what next? My university library has nothing by Rothbard, so that’s out. They have a fair bit of some other economists that I’ve heard mentioned around mises.com. I think they have all of Hayek, and most of mises.

Thanks.

2

“Human Action”!

3

If you have a book, you should read it, even if you don’t agree with it.

As for your university library, go ahead and delve into Hayek’s and Mises’s works. Which books do they have?

4

Alright, it seems that HA is a rather highly recommended book around here. I guess I’d best get on with it.

If you were interested, these are the other books I can get a hold of.

Hayek:

The fatal conceit

The trend of economic thinking

The fortunes of liberalism

Good money parts I-II

Contra Keynes and Cambridge : essays, correspondence

Socialism and war : essays, documents, reviews

The pure theory of capital

Collectivist planning in economic / Frederich A. Hayek, editor

Denationalisation of money : an analysis of the theory and practice of concurrent currencies

Economic freedom and representative government

Money and business cycles / edited by M. Colonna, H. Hagemann – v. 2. Capitalism, socialism, and knowledge

Full employment at any price?

Law, legislation and liberty / F.A. Hayek

Knowledge, evolution, and society / F.A. Hayek.

Monetary nationalism and international stability / by F.A. von Hayek.

Mises:

Bureacracy

Socialism

HA

Planning for freedom, and other essays and addresses

On the manipulation of money and credit

Omnipotent government : the rise of the total state and total war

Nation, state, and economy : contributions to the politics and history of our time

Ludwig von Mises, notes and recollections

Epistemological problems of economics

The theory of money and credit

The ultimate foundation of economic science

5

I think Rothbard is a much better writer then Hayek and more consistent. Try searching for some of his books like

Man, Economy, State

America’s Great Depression

History of Economic Thought

Mystery of Banking

History of Money and Banking in the United States

Conceived in Liberty

6

Depends on your computer monitor, and whether you can stand reading books on it. Almost all of Rothbard’s works are available as downloadable PDFs from the Mises Institute. Every book listed in Laughing Man’s preceding post is, at least. Just search the titles in LvMI’s literature section and click away.

7

I second Krazy Kaju, but you really have to read these:

8

I would start off with Mises’s “Human Action,” since it is the most complete treatise on economics in that list you provided. I would then continue with “The Theory of Money and Credit,” which is Mises’s explanation of the business cycle, followed by “Socialism,” which is Mises’s refutation of socialist calculation. You’ll find that both of these books just focus and specify certain things Mises wrote in Human Action. I haven’t read the other Mises books, but they all look like good reads. I’m not as familiar with Hayek’s works, but “The Pure Theory of Capital” is something you should read to better understand that Austrian theory of the business cycle. I haven’t read Hayek’s other books, but, if I were you, I would probably read his more political books (e.g. “Law, Legislation, and Liberty”) and then move on to his books on epistemology and economics.

So, I suggest you read these books in this order:

  1. Mises - Human Action
  2. Mises - The Theory of Money and Credit
  3. Mises - Socialism
  4. Hayek - The Pure Theory of Capital
  5. Your Choice

Reading these four books and truly grasping their arguments will prepare you to debate with even the best of economists. Human Action is a masterpiece, understand it, and you will probably have a better understanding of economics than your average econ major.

9

I’d recommend that more people actually read Mises’ Theory & History. It is probably his most underrated work.

10

To be honest, I also read 1776 and it was a good book, if obviously biased in favor of washington, but you get a good feel for how it was like being a colonial soldier (it wasn’t pretty) and it dispels the myth of colonial america being a libertarian paradise big time. Summed up, the point of the book was a moral one about the importance of perseverance and the reading is quick because the flow of the text is similar to that of a tightly written novel.

11

Replace The Pure Theory of Capital with Prices and Production. The former was a preliminary work on capital theory that Hayek eventually abandoned, I’ve not read it, but apparently it goes into some of more thorny issue of capital theory. The latter is Hayek’s exposition of the business cycle which will probably be more relevant to your studies.

Also, if you’re reading Hayek, you simply can’t afford to miss Individualism and Economic Order. Especially the essays “Economics and Knowledge”, “The Facts of the Social Sciences”, “The Use of Knowledge in Society” and “The Meaning of Competition”.