Cato on Campus - History: Modern History

Banished: 'The Forsaken' by Tim Tzouliadis

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 09:49:00 EDT

Reviewed by Richard Pipes: "Most of these expatriates, not intellectuals but simple working men, were quickly disenchanted and wanted to return home, only to find that Moscow considered them Soviet citizens and barred them from leaving. Ignored by the American government, many of them ended in the gulag."

Crying Wolf: Are we all fascists now?

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:46:00 EDT

By Michael C. Moynihan: "To anyone that has attended a political demonstration, trawled a blog, or attended a Western university in the past half century, the scattershot use of 'fascist' will ring familiar. And almost as clich�d as accusing an ideological opponent of fascist sympathies is the accurate observation that such charges often demonstrate an utter lack of understanding of just what qualifies as fascist, other than 'someone I vehemently disagree with.'"

Everyone in Favor, Say Yargh!

Mon, 12 May 2008 15:34:00 EDT

By Joanna Weiss: "Long before they made their way into the workings of modern government, the democratic tenets we hold so dear were used to great effect on pirate ships. Checks and balances. Social insurance. Freedom of expression. So Leeson, an economics professor at George Mason University, will argue in his upcoming book, The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates."

The Lie About Where Che Lies

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 09:36:00 EST

By Alvaro Vargas Llosa: "It is not surprising, of course, that Che Guevara's remains are a myth. Everything about this modern saint is a myth -- his love of justice, his romantic disposition, his goodness."

What FDR Had In Common With the Other Charismatic Collectivists of the 30s

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 12:42:00 EDT

By David Boaz: "When economic crisis hit � in Italy and Germany after World War I, in the United States with the Great Depression � the anti-liberals seized the opportunity, arguing that the market had failed and that the time for bold experimentation had arrived."

Alexis de Tocqueville

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 10:25:00 EDT

A site about the life and work of Alexis de Tocqueville, one of the great modern political thinkers and an inspiration to classical liberals ever since. This site gives detailed biographical information as well as images and text in English and in French.

Petraeus, the Surge & History

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:13:00 EDT

"Many have repeated the claim that Iraq is Vietnam all over again. History never repeats itself exactly, so no example is perfect. But the American surge in Iraq bears a striking and little-noted resemblance to the Germans' ill-fated offensive in the last year of World War I."

'Knowing' Industrial Pollution: Nuisance Law and the Power of Tradition in a Time of Rapid Economic Change, 1840 � 1864

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Experience shows that Common Law and Private Property Rights can be an alternative to top-down regulation on air pollution. In this essay, Christine Meisner Rosen examines nuisance law "from the perspective of an environmental historian who is interested in how people made sense of industrial pollution problems in the past."

The Common Law: How it protects the environment

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EDT

"The purpose of this PERC Policy Series paper is to show, by examining specific cases in American and English history, that strong legal traditions enabled ordinary citizens to protect their air, land, and water, often against politically potent parties."