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May 27, 2019|Alexander Hamilton, Anthony Peacock, Charles Beard, James Madison, John Jay, Martin Diamond, Publius, The Federalist, Thucydides

Refreshing and Disturbing: Anthony Peacock on Thucydides and The Federalist

by Karl Walling|

Peacock’s rediscovery of the lost Federalist is a much needed corrective to contemporary scholarship.

January 29, 2019|George Orwell, Godwin's law, Immigration, MAGA caps, Racism, Thucydides

Why Some Progressives Make Unjustified Accusations of Racism

by John O. McGinnis|

Image: John M. Chase/Shutterstock.com
As Orwell saw, politics is a battle of language, not least because most people think reflexively and not deeply about public policy.

June 14, 2017|Bertrand de Jouvenel, Donald Trump, Senator Chuck Grassley, Separation of Powers, Thucydides

Vindicating Publius

by Greg Weiner|

Publius Valerius

A recent Washington Post analysis accuses President Trump of acting like a “king” speaking to “peasants” as he wages “war” on constitutional checks on his power.

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January 9, 2017|Frankfurt School, Free Speech Movement, Fugitive Democracy and Other Essays, Jean Paul Sartre, Lord Vetinari, Max Weber, Sheldon S. Wolin, Thucydides

We’ll Always Have Sproul Plaza

by Fred Baumann|

Sheldon S. Wolin, who died last year, was an immensely influential figure in American political thought. His student, Nicholas Xenos, has edited 25 of Wolin’s essays as a kind of monument to his teacher, the noted democratic theorist, lover of “participatory democracy,” and scourge of all forms of antidemocratic thought. And a fitting monument it is. Fugitive Democracy and Other Essays gradually reveals the whole of Wolin’s thought from bottom to top, from fundamental question to perpetual answer. That question is what to do about modernity. Like Martin Heidegger and his French followers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Michel Foucault, but above…

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March 28, 2016|History of the Peloponnesian War, Mary P. Nichols, Thucydides, Thucydides and the Pursuit of Freedom

Freedom of the Athenians

by Alberto R. Coll|

It is a daunting task to write a book on Thucydides and have something new and interesting to say. A formidable group of scholars, including the incomparable Donald Kagan and Clifford Orwin, have written rich analytical studies that have both illuminated and rendered accessible to us moderns the work of the dean of historians. Following in Kagan’s and Orwin’s footsteps, numerous commentators and students have produced what is now a substantial body of scholarship. Yet Mary P. Nichols has succeeded in giving us a study that opens up Thucydides’ work in a refreshing way by focusing her analysis on the…

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December 29, 2015|Athens, History of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles, Sparta, Thucydides

Thucydides’ Pursuit of Freedom: A Conversation with Mary Nichols

by Mary P. Nichols|

In this Liberty Law Talk, Mary Nichols discusses her new book, Thucydides and the Pursuit of Freedom, which explores the idea of freedom in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. This work, which Thucydides offered as a possession for all time, permits us, Nichols observes, to consider the manifestations of freedom in both cities and individuals.

May 4, 2015|Dale C. Copeland, International Relations, Machiavelli, Thucydides, War

Trade Expectations and the Outbreak of Wars

by William Anthony Hay|

Why countries go to war remains a perennial question for international relations. Military, ideological, and geopolitical challenges to a nation’s security draw great attention, but its economic interests play an important part that demands greater study. To that end, Dale C. Copeland has written Economic Interdependence and War, a carefully argued contribution to the professional literature on international relations. While controlling resources and gaining territory have long been factors in driving conflict, few wars have been fought ostensibly for market share. Copeland argues that commercial factors have been far more important to the outbreak of war than either realists or liberals…

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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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About

Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.
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