{"id":904,"date":"2020-12-06T14:12:21","date_gmt":"2020-12-06T03:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/?p=904"},"modified":"2026-06-27T15:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T05:48:09","slug":"the-encyclopedia-of-libertarianism-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/the-encyclopedia-of-libertarianism-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism (2008)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

An outstanding resource for students and teachers of the classical liberal \/ libertarian tradition is the Cato Institute\u2019s Encyclopedia of Libertarianism<\/em> (2008) which, in its 600 pages of double-columned type, has articles on the key ideas, important figures, and historical movements of this tradition. After a very long wait it is available online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Editor-in-Chief Ronald Hamowy. Assistant Editors Jason Kuznicki and Aaron Steelman. Consulting Editor Deirdre McCloskey. Founding and Consulting Editor Jeffrey D. Schultz.<\/em> (Los Angeles: Sage, 2008. A Project of the Cato Institute).<\/p>\n

My small contribution to the project was a series of 9 articles on French classical liberals which I have now put online at my own website<\/a>. They are on:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Comte, Charles (1782-1837),<\/li>\n
  2. Condorcet, Marquis de (1743-1794),<\/li>\n
  3. Constant, Benjamin (1767-1830),<\/li>\n
  4. Dunoyer, Charles (1786-1862),<\/li>\n
  5. French Revolution,<\/li>\n
  6. Molinari, Gustave de (1819-1912),<\/li>\n
  7. Say, Jean-Baptiste (1767-1832),<\/li>\n
  8. Tracy, Destutt de (1754-1836), and<\/li>\n
  9. Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques (1727-1781).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I thought the book provided such a good survey of the CL tradition in a compact and easily accessible form (except for the very high price of the physical book, before it went online and free of charge) that I designed a series of lectures I was asked to give on the history of the classical liberal tradition around readings taken from the Encyclopedia<\/em>. My series of lectures needs to be rewritten and revised but here is the overall structure of them:<\/p>\n

    The Classical Liberal Tradition – A History Of Ideas And Movements Over 400 Years<\/h3>\n
      \n
    1. Introduction\n
        \n
      1. The Problem of Definition: Liberalism vs. Hyphenated Liberalism<\/li>\n
      2. Is Liberalism “Left” or “Right”?<\/li>\n
      3. The Relationship between Ideas, Interests, and Action<\/li>\n
      4. Liberalism and the State\n
          \n
        1. The Problem of Class and Class Struggle<\/li>\n
        2. The Problem of Revolution<\/li>\n
        3. The Problem of Keeping the State Limited<\/li>\n
        4. Why people obey the State?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
        5. The Methodology used in this Paper<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
        6. I. Ideas\n
            \n
          1. What Liberals were For and what they were Against<\/li>\n
          2. Twelve Key Concepts of Liberty<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
          3. II: Individuals, Movements, & Political Events\n
              \n
            1. The Pre-history of Liberalism<\/li>\n
            2. The Four Main Periods of Liberal Activity\/Reform\n
                \n
              1. 1640s: the English Civil War\/Revolution<\/li>\n
              2. 1750s-1790s: the American and French Revolutions<\/li>\n
              3. the long liberal 19th century 1815-1914<\/li>\n
              4. the post-WW2 liberal renaissance<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
              5. Key Thinkers (Texts), Politicians and Activists (Movements, Documents)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
              6. III. Key Political Documents<\/li>\n
              7. IV. Strategies to Achieve Liberal Reforms<\/li>\n
              8. V. The Achievements and Failures of Liberalism<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                The reading for this series of lectures is listed here<\/a> with links to the online version of the Encyclopedia<\/em> for information on \u201cKey Ideas\u201d and \u201cKey Movements and People\u201d<\/p>\n

                Overview<\/a> of \u201cThe Classical Liberal Tradition – A History Of Ideas And Movements Over 400 Years\u201d<\/p>\n

                  \n
                1. A History of Classical Liberalism I<\/a>: Twelve Key Concepts of Liberty (with \u201cconcept maps\u201d)<\/li>\n
                2. A History of Classical Liberalism II<\/a>: The Ideological Movements & Key Political Events which made The Classical Liberal Tradition possible<\/li>\n
                3. Quotations about Liberty & Power<\/a> (from the classic texts)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                  The Classical Liberal Tradition – Readings from The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism<\/a><\/p>\n

                  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                  An outstanding resource for students and teachers of the classical liberal \/ libertarian tradition is the Cato Institute\u2019s Encyclopedia of Libertarianism (2008) which, in its 600 pages of double-columned type, has articles on the key ideas, important figures, and historical movements of this tradition. After a very long wait it is available online. The Encyclopedia … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-libertarianism"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204833,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions\/204833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}