Summer Reading Recommendations from Tom G. Palmer

This is the fourth post in a series of summer reading recommendations from some of SFL’s favorite pro-liberty advocates. You can find the first post here, the second post here, and the third post here. You can support SFL by purchasing any of the following books on Amazon by clicking here before shopping.

Dr. Tom G. Palmer is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, and director of Cato University, the Institute’s educational arm. Palmer is also the executive vice president for international programs at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, and is responsible for establishing operating programs in 14 languages and managing programs for a worldwide network of think tanks.

1. Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World (2010) by Deirdre McCloskey

“This book is well written, pretty easy to understand, and positively ground breaking.  It explains the modern world and what made it possible for human life to advance so spectacularly over the past 200 years.”

2. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2012) by Timothy Snyder

“This is a difficult book to read, not because of bad writing or complex grammar, but because it is hard to read without tears.  It brilliantly tells the story of what happens when people are caught between rival collectivisms that valued the life of the individual at zero.”

3. The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Modern European Thought (2007) by Jerry Z. Muller

“This book will introduce you to the great debates about the market, not only among economists, but among sociologists, artists, social critics, philosophers, and more.  Muller also wrote a very insightful shorter book called Capitalism and the Jews that is helpful, as well.”

4. Social Contract, Free Ride: A Study of the Public-Goods Problem (1989) by Anthony de Jasay

“Jasay is an economist who writes delightful prose and who can take you on an enjoyable ride through game theory and the economics of public goods; the math is pretty easy (just enough to do the job) and very accessible.”

5. The Ethics of Redistribution (1990) by Bertand de Jouvenel

“This very short book is based on lectures he gave at Cambridge University.  You will never think about the welfare state and redistribution the same way after reading this little book.”

6. The Concept of the Political (2007) by Carl Schmitt

“This is one of the smartest and  most influential attacks ever written.  It is a frontal assault on the ideas of the free society.  If you want to understand the opposition to freedom, it helps to wrestle with this book.  (I respond to it in the new book from The Atlas Network SFL, Peace, Love, Liberty.)”