Albert Jay Nock’s life spanned the transformation of the United States from the laissez‑faire America of the late nineteenth century to the managerial state of the New Deal. Born on October 13, 1870 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Nock studied Greek and Latin in the classical curriculum at St. Stephen’s College. He was ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1897, but church life proved too confining; within a few years he left the pulpit to write for American Magazine and to edit The Nation. In 1920 he and bookseller B. W. Huebsch launched The Freeman, a weekly that presented essays by radicals and...
















