Short Review: America’s Great Depression (Rothbard)

I kind of enjoy Rothbard’s writing, so I checked out his economic history of the Great Depression because I figured that he would have an interesting perspective as an economist.

I found America’s Great Depression lackluster compared to Rothbard’s other work. It’s a fine book and a herculean effort of scholarship, but it’s neither Man, Economy, and the State in its provision of economic details nor Conceived in Liberty in its flow and appeal. As an economic history it’s less concerned with people than the events that shaped the markets and economic crisis, so the dryness of the text is to be expected.

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Review: Wilfred McClay’s Land of Hope

Land of Hope is a survey of American history written from a conservative perspective. Despite this, it is far from propagandistic, avoiding that tendency which has become vogue in the age of Howard Zinn.

What Land of Hope derives its conservative perspective from is its focus, rather than its presentation. It avoids painting America in an overly glossy light or arguing to justify its failings, but it draws out the strengths of the American political system.

As a broad survey of American politics, Land of Hope moves quickly, though not so quickly that it neglects important details. Its coverage of the Progressive Era is an example of how McClay can draw out threads in a way that assesses the ideas, culture, and practices of a particular point in time. While he opposes many of these developments and highlights their flaws, he presents them in an even and balanced way as part of America’s developmental history.

A Brief History

To my knowledge, it is only in history that we can term a 500-page book brief, but Land of Hope is that sort of book. It straddles the line between textbook and popular history, providing enough information to let readers draw their own conclusions and build a picture of the sequence of events.

However, one way in which it differs greatly from a traditional textbook is in its strength as an engaging text. McClay takes a laser focus to his subject. Repetition is rare, used only as a tool to provide readers with reminders of events or to emphasize importance.

McClay covers American history from pre-colonial times to the modern day. Someone familiar with the history of any given section will notice omissions of figures who are on the fringes of mainstream historiography, but the strength of the book stems from its ability to capture the spirit and key events of each period.

The Conservative View

While it’s probably fair to say that McClay’s goals are conservative, he is careful not to embellish or gloss over history.

A good example of this is in his approach to the Civil War. He points out that the arguments that emerged as common knowledge about American history are justifications after the fact.

McClay goes to great pains to point out that the Union’s interest in the Civil War was not the abolition of slavery from the very beginning, using examples from Lincoln’s own public statements and correspondence and other contemporaries. He also builds a case that the Confederacy’s arguments that they were simply seeking independence don’t match their own actions in the years prior to the Civil War, when they were using the law to force citizens in free states to conform to their desires.

Despite this, McClay never treats his subjects as Zinn-like cynical and self-interested villains. Even when they engage in acts which McClay himself openly considers immoral and abhorrent, he gives them the dignity of an examination. When they cannot live up to the standards of today, they do so based on their failings and not the desires of a storyteller to create figures in a play.

Rather, he points out that what we hope for our heritage as Americans to be is largely a projection. We should not expect others to be less flawed and compromising than we are, and he accurately disabuses people of the hero worship that surrounds many figures.

McClay makes it clear that many of America’s great failings are because of the unwillingness of people to take action that they know is necessary. For instance, Jefferson’s writing against slavery does not comport with his actions in holding slaves.

His approach clarifies that while Jefferson would have had difficulty in emancipating his slaves, it would have been the only principled action to take.

The Overall Picture

One weakness of modern historians is that they often try to construct narratives where none exist, and while McClay desires to show America as an institution that has shifted and changed over the years to become what it is today he does not provide the comic book simplicity of a Zinn.

Rather, McClay focuses on the big ideas, but does not force them to conform. For instance, he does not pretend that the Progressive Era involves the same thrust for liberty as the Revolutionary War, though he raises the point that the progressive political philosophy operates on what we might now consider a Rawlsian approach to liberty.

This is far superior to the modern critical theories, and necessary to provide a view of American history as something that is both distinctly American and tied to the currents of the world at large.

A good comparison here would be to compare McClay to Rothbard. Rothbard takes an almost Hegelian approach to the struggle between liberty and power in Conceived in Liberty, but McClay does not enforce dichotomous structures on his presentation of history.

The strength of McClay’s approach is its clarity. Because it abandons the pretense of a march of history and draws on his strengths as a writer rather than embellishment and flourishes, Land of Hope doesn’t need to fabricate a story to keep a reader going.


I’d strongly recommend Land of Hope as an introduction to American history.

Because of its length relative to its breadth, it’s not a book that goes into details, though McClay does a good job of keeping a perspective that can make it fresh for people who have some background in history but want an overview for a refresher.

One of the original purposes of the book was to create a textbook that would be suitable for classrooms as an alternative to Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. While it’s clearly got some conservative leanings, McClay’s work comes from an examined patriotism rather than blind nationalist fervor, and is free of many of the shoddy historical practices that plague Zinn’s work.

I listened to Land of Hope on Audible, and while the audio is good, I often wanted to reference things in a way that’s more feasible in text. I’d recommend it on Kindle (affiliate link). It’s three dollars over there right now, so that’s a heck of a bargain for a book of its caliber.

Review: Murray Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty

I have an addiction to voluminous history books and Conceived in Liberty promised to scratch that itch from the very start. The five volumes span American history from the first colonial times to the immediate aftermath of the Revolutionary War.

Conceived in Liberty has the distinction of being much more detailed than a similarly sized historical survey of general American history, and a little less detailed than one would expect from a highly topical work (e.g. Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin biography in three volumes).

Combine this with Rothbard’s revisionist approach to American history, and Conceived in Liberty is interesting.

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Review: Shelby Steele’s Shame

Shame: How America’s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country came out in 2015, but it remains as relevant as ever as an analysis of race and the political divisions that have become inflamed in America.

Shame is autobiography interspersed with historical and political context, making it a book that is more interesting, though perhaps less dryly academic, than the work of many others like Thomas Sowell (in, for example, The Quest for Cosmic Justice).

Steele follows a similar trajectory to Sowell; starting out as a young black man in America and then experiencing a world that had prejudged him. Steele’s account of racism shows how even those who perceived themselves as enlightened took part in bigotry and were unwilling to make personal sacrifices to reach the proper standard of just behavior.

And like Sowell, Steele brings his concerns with the political machinations of the modern left to the table. As a staunch advocate of individual rights and reforms, he argues that the philosophical and intellectual leaders among the conservatives have undertaken a noble quest to remove injustice and create a more perfect system.

He compares this perspective–the perspective of his father–with the modern belief that the past oppressions of America have shown it to be unfit and that only radical changes can improve society.

In 2015, this might have been derided as a strawman of the left, but recent events have shown Steele’s judgment to be eerily prescient.

His experiences with student radicalism and the Black Panthers in exile play a prominent role in forming his perception of the left, and one of the fundamental distinctions that he cites is the question of American exceptionalism: the idea that something novel about liberty, freedom, and self-reliance has been responsible for America being distinct from other countries.

Steele is less focused on the nature of American exceptionalism–he discusses it only in passing–but it is the divide between the political right, who see the exceptionalism as something that makes America worth preserving, and the political left, who are cynical about whether it even exists that forms the underlying foundation of the work.

Although it is less academically rigorous and more anecdotal than some other books written by prominent conservative voices on race in society, Shame is an important contribution to the corpus. Perhaps it is exactly the personal nature, the intersection between the world and the man, that makes it as powerful and valuable as it is.

Find it: Amazon affiliate link. I listened to the Audible version, available from the same page.

Rating: 5 out of 5

For the kids: It’s not a light text, but it blends personal interest and useful information. Shame includes accounts of real events and quotes that might trouble younger readers.

Who will enjoy it?

Conservatives seeking an answer to Critical Race Theory-derived views on the American history of race. People who like biographies with a touch of extra cerebral material. It’s well-written enough to hold broad appeal to audiences as a relevant text to understanding the American experience.

Review: Thomas Sowell’s The Quest for Cosmic Justice

Thomas Sowell is one of the most prominent American conservatives, and his The Quest for Cosmic Justice is a testament to why he’s achieved that status.

Sowell breaks down the distinction between what one could call the conservative (e.g. Austrian economics, universalist theories of law) plan to improve the lives of all Americans and the progressive (e.g. Keynesian/Rawlsian) method.

He focuses primarily on the concept of justice, and where he feels that progressives have gotten things wrong.

I will not seek to replicate Sowell’s argument, but the points that stood out to me are:

  1. The statistics and factors that lead into poverty (and why the Rawlsian approach should not be applied in particular to race and gender, as is in vogue with progressives)
  2. The distinction between traditional justice which seeks redress for grievances regarding crimes committed by individuals, and cosmic justice (which is more in line with modern “social justice” theory) which seeks to balance outcomes across a broad variety of people.
  3. The hazards of creating power structures required to seek cosmic justice; both in their propensity to create unintended consequences and tools for people who seek to abuse power.

Sowell’s work is brilliant at building a case and offering a well-read insight to social and political philosophies. However, if you want vibrant delivery, you may find his lectures, debates, and interviews more engaging.

In Sowell’s defense, the reason for the dryness of this book is that it is short for the level of content it delivers. While much of the book has interest, it relies more on the logic of its arguments and high-level analysis. This is not to imply that it leaves out key details. It just doesn’t have Hayek’s fervor or Steele’s personal connection that can bring some more engagement to a reader-unfriendly subject when it delves into economics.

With that said, I have more than a passing interest in economics, political philosophy, law, and cultural issues, which makes me the ideal target audience for Sowell’s work.

One note for audiences in 2020 might be to point out that Sowell refers to progressive thought primarily in the Rawlsian sense. While modern critical theorists build on this foundation, they have philosophical distinctions. Sowell’s arguments are still valid regardless, but you might find that postmodernists have different values than Rawls did.


Rating: 5 out of 5

For the kids: If they have an interest in the subject. It’s not the most engaging and thrilling read, but it’s good solid stuff.

Who will enjoy it?

Political philosophy types, economists. If you’re a fan of Sowell, this is a classic work of his. It’s in the vein of Hayek’s blend of economics, political theory, and philosophy as seen in The Road to Serfdom, with a stronger emphasis on America in specific.

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I recommend it wholeheartedly.

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