From about 1800 to the present the world's economy did something good, which looks to be permanent and looks to be justified. If contrary to the evidence we cling to our prejudices about economic history—our view that the Industrial Revolution was improverishng, or...
History
Was the Bolshevik Revolution Inevitable?
If you had to pick the single most influential individual of the twentieth century, Vladimir Lenin would almost certainly be in the top of your bracket. While a certain Austrian art student might have a bit more x-factor—as we say in the sales business—the leader of...
TGIF: Hurray for the Industrial Revolution!
Unbelievably, in 2025, walking among us are people, many of them young and college-educated, who believe the Industrial Revolution (spawned by the liberal Enlightenment) was a disaster for most of mankind. They yearn for what they imagine was the tranquil, plentiful,...
The Allies Could Have Done More, and Chose Not To
Over the last year, a renewed controversy has arisen over the morality of World War II. For the last eighty years, World War II has been sold in the West as "The Good War" in which the United Kingdom and the United States, in spite of committing some war crimes, saved...
John Locke and the Libertarian Tradition
The Enlightenment produced many innovators, but few have left a legacy as contentious and influential as John Locke. Born in Wrington, Somerset on August 29, 1632, Locke wrote the political treatises that shaped England’s Glorious Revolution and later guided the...
The Hawk’s 1945 Project
Two weeks ago at The Free Press (TFP), Rebeccah L. Heinrichs of the Hudson Institute wrote a 3,000-word article critiquing conservative disapproval of President Donald Trump’s bombing of Iran last month. Heinrichs linked this conservative denunciation of Trump’s...
Robert Taft Foresaw the Dangers of NATO
On July 26, 1949, Ohio Senator Robert Taft delivered a speech in which he explicated his reasons for voting against ratification of the North Atlantic Treaty. His remarks included the following: "If we undertake to arm all the nations around Russia from Norway on the...
Industrial Capitalism and Its Critics
The nineteenth century marked the most dramatic leap forward in human welfare ever witnessed. It was a century defined not by aristocrats or emperors, but by coal, cotton, contracts, and capitalists. In his lectures “War, Peace, and the Industrial Revolution” and “The...
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