An English translation of the tale. Beowulf is one of the first literary masterpieces of the English language, written in Old English in the eleventh century. The story itself is thought to have been originally composed sometime between 700 and 750. Although certain places and events are indeed historical, the main character of the story, Beowulf, is thought to be a fictional, archetypal hero. It recounts the life of Prince Beowulf of the Scandinavian Geats, who fights various monsters, returns to his father’s kingdom a hero and soon becomes king himself, ruling for fifty years in peace until a frightful dragon appears. Once more Beowulf must fulfill his responsibilities, even unto his own destruction.

Atkinson applies the free trade ideas of Bastiat and Cobden to the American situation. He criticizes the tradition of Hamilton, debunks the idea that protection improves the economic condition of ordinary workers, argues that free trade promotes peace and that protection promotes war, and urges the free coinage of gold and silver.

The book contains a lengthy introduction to the life and work of Black by Norton as well as full page black and white copies of the etchings which Blake made between 1823 and 1826 for his illustrated edition of the Book of Job.

The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks is one of the major products of the Scottish Enlightenment and a masterpiece of jurisprudence and social theory. Millar developed a progressive account of the nature of authority in society by analyzing changes in subsistence, agriculture, arts, and manufacture. The book is perhaps the most precise and compact development of the abiding themes of the liberal wing of the Scottish Enlightenment. Drawing on Smith’s four-stages theory of history and the natural law’s traditional division of domestic duties into those toward servants, children, and women, Millar provides a rich historical analysis of the ways in which progressive economic change transforms the nature of authority. In particular, he argues that, with the progress of arts and manufacture, authority tends to become less violent and concentrated, and ranks tend to diversify. Millar’s analysis of this historical progress is nuanced and sophisticated; for example, his discussion of servants is perhaps the best developed of the “economic” arguments against slavery.

Boetie asks one of the most basic questions of political theory: why is it that a minority of rulers can remain in power over a majority of subjects who pay all the taxes. His answer is that most of the subjects willingly submit to rule by a minority.

A third volume consisting of Maine’s lectures at the University of Oxford. The first was Village Communities in the East and West”; the second was The Early History of Institutions*. This volume is drawn from a number of his courses and deals with a range of topics as religion and the law, the Salic law, feudal property and the classification of property.

A collection of Chodorov’s essays selected from The Freeman and Human Events and other publications.

Paine’s pamphlet defending the early liberal phase of the French Revolution was written in response to Edmund Burke’s critique.

Until the publication of this Liberty Fund edition, all but one of the works contained in Logic, Metaphysics, and the Natural Sociability of Mankind were available only in Latin. This milestone English translation will provide a general audience with insight into Hutcheson’s thought. In the words of the editors: “Hutcheson’s Latin texts in logic and metaphysics form an important part of his collected works. Published respectively in 1756 and, in its second edition, 1744, these works represent Hutcheson’s only systematic treatments of logic, ontology, and pneumatology, or the science of the soul. They were considered indispensable texts for the instruction of students in the eighteenth century.”

The English historian of economic thought Higgs discusses iin a series of lectures given at the London School of Economics in 1896 the 18th century free market Physiocratic school, its origins, ideas, political and intellectual influence.