The Root of Liberty Reading List

Welcome to a library of literature discussing the philosophy of individual liberty.

The Essential Reading List menu above provides a self study program.  The webpage for each essential book and essay includes links to text and audio files containing their content, along with a discussion of their key concepts.  Read the essential books and essays in the order listed.

The inspiration for this website is the following article written by Dan Sanchez of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE):

Liberty Needs a Self-Study Movement 

The article makes the following points:

Liberty is not merely a slate of policies or a “side” in a culture war. Liberty is a philosophy: a system of ideas. Ideas must be comprehended to be adopted and to make ideas comprehensible to others, we must first fully comprehend them ourselves.

As Leonard Read said: "If liberty is losing, it is because those with the potential to be liberty leaders are neglecting to 'do their homework', i.e., to first put their own house of ideas in order."

For liberty to meaningfully win, we must become a movement centered around contagious self-improvement and self-study.

Tom Woods offers a compelling explanation of why studying individual liberty is both transformative and essential:

“We're in a minority, so we can't afford to be ordinary. Each of us has a responsibility to the cause we represent to become as informed as we can, to be the best communicators we can, to go the extra mile so our impact will be greater than our numbers.”

Before beginning the Essential Reading List, please view the following 5 minute video titled "The Philosophy of Liberty" by Ken Schoolland.  Write your impressions of this video and keep those notes.  After completing the Essential Reading List, return to watch this video again.  Write your impressions of this video after your second viewing and compare your impressions from the first viewing to your impressions from the second viewing.