Summer 2011 Issue of The Independent Review Now Available. Discuss.
It’s always a treat to announce the publication of a new issue of our acclaimed quarterly journal, The Independent Review.
If nothing else, it gives me an excuse to write up essay-type questions based on the new issue’s contents—and thereby bring to mind (to my mind, at least) those recurring Saturday Night Live skits, “Coffee Talk with Linda Richman,” in which Mike Meyers’s character, when overcome with emotion (“I’m a little verklempt”), would say to her television audience something like, “The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. Discuss.”
Here, now, are some probing, pedantic questions based on our Summer 2011 issue:
- In what ways do Mario Vargas Llosa’s greatest political novels reflect the author’s disenchantment with ideology and fanaticism, and his intellectual migration away from the political left? Read Julio H. Cole’s article (pdf). (Incidentally, Sr. Vargas Llosa will be an honoree at the Independent Institute’s 25th Anniversary Gala for Liberty on November 15, in San Francisco, Calif.)
- How does the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 promote the shifting of risk from large “systemically important” financial firms to smaller, less-regulated ones? Read Roy C. Smith’s article (pdf).
- How can thinking about religious liberty in terms of property rights and rational economic behavior help protect private rights and public order while avoiding religious discrimination? Read the opening paragraphs of James A. Montanye’s article.
- What is the paradox of habeas corpus, and why is the “Great Writ of Liberty” badly in need of a justifying principle? Read Anthony Gregory’s article (pdf).
- How did Jane Addams’s views about her charitable works exemplify the Social Gospel movement’s attempt to synthesize Christianity and Progressivism? Read the opening paragraph of Brandon Harnish’s article.
- How can the study of foreign affairs be illuminated by the insight that the international balance of power is a type of spontaneous order? Read the opening paragraphs of Edwin van de Haar’s article.
- Where do Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm go astray in their mostly sound and informative book, Crisis Economics? Read George Selgin’s review essay (pdf).
- How strong is the evidence for the claim that for centuries the inhabitants of upland Southeast Asia organized their lives and cultures in ways designed to avoid predation by the state? Read Thomas J. Thompson’s book review.
- What were the greatest successes and failures of U.S. conservatives who sought to restrain the federal leviathan? Read Anthony Gregory’s book review.
- In what way did the political culture of Dakota Territory in the 1880s reflect civic republicanism and religious diversity, rather than the social conflict proclaimed by the academic expositors of “new western history”? Read Gregory L. Schneider’s book review.
- How does cultural evolution—especially the natural selection of ideas—contribute to the division of labor, specialization, and comparative advantage and thereby foster prosperity? Read James A. Montanye’s book review.
- What’s wrong with the standard criticisms of the Supreme Court’s decision in Lochner v. New York (1905) and their attacks on the liberty of contract? Read William J. Watkins Jr.’s book review.
- Why have U.S. presidents led the American people into a host of wars that had nothing to do with protecting the nation from an existential threat? Read Robert Higgs’s “Etceteras…” article (pdf). (Dr. Higgs will also be honored at the Independent Institute’s 25th Anniversary Gala for Liberty on November 15, in San Francisco, Calif.)
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And as Linda Richman would say . . . discuss amongst yourselves.
