Recently, expanding my listening and reading list in more ‘modern’ Austrians I came across Thomas Woods’ article called “Government: The Cause of – and Solution to-- All of our Problems” [http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods108.html] Let me just begin by saying that as a historian it is certainly refreshing to see other historians with libertarian minded viewpoints. In a ‘movement’ engrossed with economists [not complaining] it is great to have other social scientists whom you don’t need to discuss business cycles with, however fun it may be. More importantly however I find the writing style of Woods to be ridiculously admirable. Whither you read the works or words of Rothbard, he always seemed to extol writers whom had the ability to demolish their critics in short, concise comments of an either humorous and or logical nature. Rothbard said this of Sir Alexander Gray and Bohm-Bawerk and I don’t think it naive to add Thomas Woods to the list if Rothbard could but read/hear his works. So I write this in the hope that it brings more readers to the blog of Thomas Woods, or perhaps compels one of them to buy one of his works, or at the very least subscribe to his podcast. His wit is something to be idolized in my mind and it speaks to the individual. It pronounces itself with the warming guise of humor and yet hints at the turbulent intellect of an individual confident in his claims.
I was thinking about this yesterday, as I am working through part 7 of Woods’ 10 part lecture series in the Mises media archive.
He really is great. He is arguably the most out in the world libertarian besides Ron Paul, and speaking truth to power in a way that Ron Paul doesn’t articulate quite as clearly. I know that everyone I show his articles and videos to (laymen, these are) are always impressed by his arguments. There is rarely any need to follow up later, since he does such a good job of explaining advanced topics in a manner compatible to the every man.
Woods is great, I watched his speak at the C4L and was really impressed and I’ve listened to a few of his lectures that show how good of a speaker her is. I’ve also read his 33 Questions You’re Not Supposed to ask About American History which was really good.
He’s one of my favourite LvMI scholars.
Anyone who doesn’t understand the ABCT is a blockhead. [:)]
I do enjoy him as well. He is funny and charismatic guy who gets his ideas across. To me that is vital in spreading the word about anything.
He’s a lot like lew rockwell, but he doesnt sound as boring when he talks. Both are incredibly intelligent.
Where can I find his podcasts online? I don’t see them on his website, and I can’t access the Itunes store.
You can’t access the store? Because thats is how I got to them. I would click on the store and the usual junk would come up then I would put Mises in the search box and then filter only for podcasts then click see all. They have the article archives of Rothbard, Rockwell, Hoppe, LeFerve, Woods, and I forgot who else.
I’m not sure if you can get them on podcast, but here is his media.
On the author page, the orange chicklet icon (RSS FEED) is your Podcast feed URL.
+5 points for Liberty
One thing (among many) that Mises.org does well is the media and providing RSS feeds, searches, author feeds etc.
I think most of the categorization from a design standpoint is very haphazard, but the # of ways you can access the data makes up for it.
If you ever want to add a feed to iTunes, RSS feeds will work, because they are XML files (data organized in a particular format) and XML is specifically designed to be portable, from a feed reader to iTunes, to all sorts of formats we haven’t even imagined or designed yet.