Books and Articles
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008)
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, widely recognized as one of the greatest moralists of the twentieth century, received the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature for exposing the moral inversions of the communist system.
The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn's masterpiece (full English translation here) documented that the communist system could not govern freely, but relied on lies, violence, and coercion. Solzhenitsyn demonstrated rigorously and with moral force that the atrocities and abuses of communism were not accidents, but the natural consequence of the implementation of Marxist ideology.
Frederick Douglass (1817 or 1818 – 1895)
Frederick Douglass was an African-American reformer, abolitionist, social writer, and statesman. Douglass escaped slavery in Maryland and became one of the most articulate and effective abolitionists. He was active during the Reconstruction Era in providing training and education for freed slaves and prepared the way for the modern civil rights era. Biography on Wikipedia
Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
Biography in Progress
Martin Luther King, Jr. Books and Biography at the King Center.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Biography in Progress
Selected writings of Gandhi from the Gandhi Research Foundation
Books and Writings by Gandhi from Texas State University
Thomas Sowell (1930-present)
African-American economist Thomas Sowell is a prolific writer whose works are among the most well-known and have received wide acclaim for his meticulous factual accuracy, careful logic, and penetrating insights, all delivered in an engaging writing style.
Sowell received degrees from Harvard, Columbia, and the University Chicago and has been a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute since 1977.
He spent his twenties as a Marxist before becoming one of the most articulate and data-driven advocates of liberty after studying at the University of Chicago under the tutelage of Milton Friedman. There, he learned “how to think pragmatically” by “looking soberly at data and implications, rather than, as Sowell described about Harvard, using your personal beliefs as facts.”
Some of Sowell’s books are freely available in audio format on the Basic Economics Youtube channel.
Most can be purchased online at Amazon or from other vendors.
A full list of Sowell’s books is found on his Wikipedia page. Some of his most well-known works include:
A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles (1987)
Marxism: Philosophy and Economics (1985)
Is Reality Optional?: and Other Essays. (1993)
The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy (1995) full text link | full audiobook and transcript
Migrations and Cultures: A World View (1996) full audiobook
Conquests and Cultures (1999) full audiobook and transcript
Dismantling America: and Other Controversial Essays (2010) full audiobook and transcript
Economic Facts and Fallacies, 2nd edition (2011) full audiobook and transcript
The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011) full audiobook
Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, 5th edition (2014)
Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective, 2nd edition (2016)
Discrimination and Disparities, revised edition (2019) full audiobook and transcript
Charter Schools and Their Enemies (2020) full audiobook and transcript
A Personal Odyssey (Thomas Sowell Memoir) full audiobook and transcript
Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992)
Nobel-prize winning economist Friedrich A. Hayek (1899-1992) was a classical liberal and insightful author on economic and societal topics. Hayek’s 1945 article “The Use of Knowledge in Society” was voted as one of the top twenty articles published in the American Economic Review during its first hundred years.
Hayek’s best known book, The Road to Serfdom (1944) (full text link), sold over two million copies and was referred to has “that unobtainable book” in wartime Britain due to high demand and paper rationing.
The Constitution of Liberty (University of Chicago Press, 1960) (full text link) has been considered by some scholars to be his most important work.
Individualism and Economic Order consists of essays published in the 1930s and 40s.
Law, Legislation and Liberty (full text link) was published in three volumes: Rules and Order (1973), The Mirage of Social Justice (1976), and The Political Order of a Free People (1979).
Milton Friedman (1912-2006)
Friedman, winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics, is widely considered the second most influential economist of the twentieth century after Keynes. Friedman's numerous publications are chronicled on the University of Chicago website.
The Free To Choose Network hosts 15 of Friedman's lectures given in 1977 and 1978:
The Role of Government in a Free Society
What is Wrong with the Welfare State?
Free Trade: Producer vs. Consumer
The Energy Crisis: A Humane Solution
Putting Learning Back in the Classroom