Albert Jay Nock, perhaps the most brilliant American essayist of the 20th century — and certainly among its most important libertarian thinkers — set out to write his autobiography but ended up doing much more. In Memoirs of a Superfluous Man he presents a full theory of society, state, economy, and culture, and does so almost inadvertently. His stories, lessons, observations, and conclusions pack a very powerful punch, so much so that anyone who takes time to read carefully cannot but end up changed in his or her intellectual outlook. One feels that one has been admitted to a private club of people who see more deeply than others. This is truly an American classic.To search for Mises Institute titles, enter a keyword and LvMI (short for Ludwig von Mises Institute); e.g., Depression LvMI 

Memoirs of a Superfluous Man

Biographies & Memoirs

Nock, Albert J.

Memoirs

Ams Pr Inc

Albert Jay Nock s Our Enemy, the State (1935) is the prize taker for the founding book of the modern liberty movement. Nock was the editor of the original The Freeman magazine. He was a famous and admired intellectual figure all through the interwar period. He was an influential critic and a well-read author. And certainly, this book is his most famous of many that he produced through his long career. It goes way beyond opposing the New Deal, though the New Deal serves as his template for the shape of statism in the 20th century. It is a corporate state that curries favor with private power while narrowing the range of influence of the private sector generally. It tends toward regimentation, confiscation, and war making. It circumscribes economic opportunity for all. It panders to the lowest and basest of human moral failings. It crowds out the development and cultivation of private society.  All of these points are argued thoroughly here, but Nock goes further. It s his conviction that the whole of civilization extends from individual action and is built by voluntary human action is the prevailing motif of this text. This book includes a surprisingly revisionist account of the Founding Fathers, perhaps one of the first written in the 20th century. It includes warnings against warfare and welfare. It ends with a plea to the remnant to retain as much liberty and learning as possible in the darkest of times.  Nock writes here as a fully formed as an intellectual with the clearest possible view of the world. He gives us a model for understanding how the state drains the rest of society of money, energy, and power. Indeed, everything written in the libertarian tradition after could be consider a follow-up to this wonderful text. And of course, the book has a title that is unbeatably clear.  This is a classic, which, in our times, sadly means that many people don t feel that they need to read it. This is a grave error because the book contains powerful insight on every page. Its wisdom has yet to be absorbed into any sector of public life today, including the libertarian sector. Nock s style, clarity of expression, aristocratic air, and even temperament can serve as a model for us all.  Stefan Molyneux has written the new introduction. The result is the most accessible edition of this essential book in the history of ideas ever published. Nock spoke for the ages, very powerfully in his and even more so in ours. It is always and everywhere true that there is a trade-off that we face in the decision to expand the state. It always comes at the expense of the social forces that make life wonderful, prosperous, and worth living. May we look to Nock as a model for how to argue and think as we continue to build liberty in our times despite all odds.

Our Enemy, the State (The Right Wing Individualist Tradition in America)

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

Ayer Co. Pub

Official Mises Institute Edition It is hard to say what is most notable about this book published first in 1931: 1. Albert Jay Nock's incredible disquisition on the real meaning of education and its role in a free society. 2. That these lectures were given at a university as part of a prestigious Page-Barbour lecture series. 3. That they were delivered at a "public ivy" school: the University of Virginia. There is no way such a lecture series could appear on a campus of this sort today. For in these lectures, Nock goes to the heart of the matter of what is wrong with the structure of education in the United States: the policy, imposed by government, of universal admissions on the theory that everyone is equally educable. The book is made up of 14 lectures, each one building on the other. He begins with an understanding of what it means to be an educated person. He discusses the dissatisfaction of nearly everyone that US schools are not in fact turning out educated people. He turns to reform movements in education and provides a shocking round up of their history (keep in mind that this is 1931). He then spells out the difference between training and education and how Americans have completely overlooked the difference in the course of seeking economic and social uplift for everyone. "Our system is based upon the assumption, popularly regarded as implicit in the doctrine of equality, that everybody is educable. This has been taken without question from the beginning; it is taken without question now. The whole structure of our system, the entire arrangement of its mechanics, testifies to this. Even our truant laws testify to it, for they are constructed with exclusive reference to school-age, not to school-ability. "When we attempt to run this assumption back to the philosophical doctrine of equality, we cannot do it; it is not there, nothing like it is there. The philosophical doctrine of equality gives no more ground for the assumption that all men are educable than it does for the assumption that all men are six feet tall. We see at once, then, that it is not the philosophical doctrine of equality, but an utterly untenable popular perversion of it, that we find at the basis of our educational system." He goes further to attack the idea that literacy alone is capable of preserving freedom and civilization. He blasts the tendency to think that education is good so long as it encompasses the largest possible group ("no child left behind"). He says that in fact a good educational institution should have very few students. The range of radical thought here is nothing short of shocking, from his claim that very few should be in college to the point that vastly more people are tenured as professors than there should be (again, 1931). Three factors have changed since he wrote. First, the practice of universal education has expanded beyond a point which Nock himself could have imagined. Second, the classical ideal of education has become all but entirely unknown. Third, the economy has ever less use for the skills that the university teaches, so it has once again fallen back to private institutions to actually prepare people for a productive life. In this case, Nock is more relevant than ever before. But beware: only read this incredible book (which was shocking in 1931) if you are prepared to completely rethink the basis of modern education.

Theory of Education in the United States

Education & Teaching

Schools & Teaching

Our Enemy, the State

This edition is the only one with an alphabetical and a quotation index. The introduction is by Edumund A. Opitz, founder, the Nockian Society.

Blackstone Pub

Albert Jay Nock, perhaps the most brilliant American essayist of the 20th century ? and certainly among its most important libertarian thinkers ? set out to write his autobiography but ended up doing much more. In Memoirs of a Superfluous Man he presents a full theory of society, state, economy, and culture, and does so almost inadvertently. His stories, lessons, observations, and conclusions pack a very powerful punch, so much so that anyone who takes time to read carefully cannot but end up changed in his or her intellectual outlook. One feels that one has been admitted to a private club of people who see more deeply than others. This is truly an American classic. To search for Mises Institute titles, enter a keyword and LvMI (short for Ludwig von Mises Institute); e.g., Depression LvMI

Univ Pr of Amer

LARGE PRINT EDITION! More at LargePrintLiberty.com.  Here is Albert Jay Nock's classic study on the life and thought of Thomas Jefferson, a book which draws out points other biographers have missed: his radicalism, his opposition to all centralized government, his attachment to liberty and property, and his dedication to the idea of revolution. In the process, Nock tells a story of the founding that you have likely never heard.

Jefferson

This wonderful collection of essays by Albert Jay Nock, first published in 1928, includes his "Anarchist's Progress," "Thoughts on Revolution," "The Decline of Conversation," and other classics by this great American essayist and influential libertarian thinker. This book has been very difficult to find, but now appears in this special Mises Institute series.

On Doing the Right Thing and Other Essays

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

Rindge 1958 1st Smith. Hardcover. Octavo, 196pp., cloth. Fine in Good DJ, a bit faded, some tiny edge chips, one closed tear.

Snoring As a Fine Art and Twelve Other Essays

This edition is the only one with an alphabetical and a quotation index. The introduction is by Edumund A. Opitz, founder, the Nockian Society.

Hallberg Pub Corp

Mr. Jefferson

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Nock, Albert J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Nock, Albert J.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Nock, Albert J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Memoirs of a Superfluous Man

Our Enemy, the State (The Right Wing Individualist Tradition in America)

Theory of Education in the United States

Our Enemy, the State

Memoirs of a Superfluous Man

Jefferson

On Doing the Right Thing and Other Essays

Snoring As a Fine Art and Twelve Other Essays

Our Enemy, the State

Mr. Jefferson