George H. Smith

This presentation examines two eloquent arguments for human liberty: John Stuart Mill's On Liberty and Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of...

Civil Disobedience discusses Thoreau's arguments for civil disobedience: the deliberate violation of laws for reasons of conscience. Thoreau's concept is...

Common Sense examines how Americans defended the right to resist unjust laws and how this right of resistance was transformed into a right of revolution. It...

Leviathanis a vigorous defense of a strong central government that was originally published in 1651, just after the English wars of 1642-49. This...

Reflections on the Revolution in France is a slashing attack on the French Revolution by one of Britain's most famous statesmen. Liberty and social order,...

Machiavelli wrote The Prince for his ruler as a guide for gaining and keeping power. Central themes of his essay are the relation between politics and...

In 1783, America emerged from a long and bitter war for Independence. The thirteen colonies were now thirteen sovereign states, bound together by the...

In 1776 the thirteen American colonies, refusing to pay unjust taxes, declared their independence from Britain. The resulting years of war became known as...

The United States Constitution established both a strong central power and protected states' rights. But to say that something is of two parts is not to say...

Two Treatises of Government is the most famous and influential defense of limited government ever published. Written during a period of increasing opposition...

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is one of the most important and influential works ever published on economic theory. A...

In 1776, the thirteen American colonies, refusing to pay unjust taxes, declared their independence from Britain. The resulting years of war are called the...

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nationsis the foundation of classical economics, and it has influenced a broad range of thinkers. In...

In 1773, Britain was the greatest power on earth, but the Seven Years War with France had doubled her national debt. To ease this burden, Britain made a...