Books in Little

Separating Fools from their Money: A History of American Financial Scandals, by Scott B. MacDonald and Jane E. Hughes (Transaction Publishers, 264 pp., 2007). In the early 2000s a series of corporate and financial scandals rocked the business world. For months...

A Tribute to Jacques Barzun on His Centennial

The shank end of 2007 has brought Jacques Barzun, the distinguished historian and cultural critic, to his one-hundredth birthday. This would be a notable event in any life. But for all of us who cherish the quiet witness of civilized men living decent, profitable, and...

The Infinite Anguish of Free Souls

On Essays and LettersIn Albert Camus’ Lyrical and Critical Essays (Vintage, 1968), I found a 1940 essay entitled, “The Almond Trees.” This collection has long been a favorite of mine. It bears much of the somberness of the then up-coming War. Camus himself was from...

The Moral Foundations of Economics

The following essay appears in the final chapter of Russell Kirk’s textbook Economics: Work and Prosperity (Pensacola, Fla.: A Beka Book Publications, 1989), pp. 365–368.Some people would like to separate economists from politics, but they are unable to do so. Another...

Searching for a Usable Past

Of Time and Place: A Farm in Wisconsin by Richard Quinney. Ivan R. Dee (Chicago), 192 pp. $28.00 cloth, 2006. The American experience has always existed in tension with, if not outright hostility towards, the strictures of time and place. By the very nature of its...