Writes Timothy Williams:

I want to thank you for your column today on Murray Rothbard. Although I’ve subscribed to the anarchocapitalist philosophy for many years now, my experience with Rothbard was limited to a few of his articles, never having obtained any of his books. So as soon as History of Economic Thought was released in PDF from Mises.org, I downloaded it. Right off the bat, I was gobsmacked by the diligence and breadth of his research and his addictive prose style. I knew Rothbard was an expert polemicist, but I was not expecting such a rich, Gibbon-esque tapestry. And to read a history written from an Austrian perspective is such an invigorating blast of fresh air!

I’m at page 251 and savoring every chapter, with History on one monitor and Wikipedia on the other to follow up the fascinating leads in almost every paragraph. You are so right that there is far too much good stuff in History to do justice with select quotations. But if I had to pick one favorite section, it would be the passages on the Münster Rebellion, an historical event of which I was completely unaware yet which presents a fascinating microcosm of the ultimate fate of centrally planned societies.

I’m 32 now; I can only imagine how my intellectual life would have changed if I’d had this book when I was 16 and just beginning to stumble across the philosophy of freedom on my own, through such imperfect channels as Mises’ then-nearly-impenetrable Human Action (which has stood the test of time) and Reason magazine and Cato Institute publications (which certainly have not). At least my own children will not be so deprived.

Thank heavens for the internet, the Mises Institute and free Murray Rothbard PDFs! Every little kilobyte says “yea” to life!

The Best of Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.