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Articles by Peter Mentzel
The Winter of Liberal Discontent – Peter Mentzel
On December 26 (O.S. December 14), 1825, a group of idealistic, young army officers, commanding about 3,000 soldiers, staged a coup in St. Petersburg with the aim of forcing the Senate to adopt a liberal constitution for the Russian Empire. Badly led and organized, it was easily crushed by the new Tsar, Nicholas I. An uprising by an allied group, operating in what is today Ukraine, met a similar fate days later.
Max Weber and Anthony D. Smith on Race, Ethnicity, and Nation
1. Introduction In the current literature on race, ethnicity, and nationalism, the work of the late Anthony D. Smith (1939–2016) has been largely neglected. This is perhaps the result of various criticisms of his work, especially those targeting its alleged “Collectivist” or “Essentialist” nature. These criticisms have led to the marginalizing of Smith’s work by some scholars (important exceptions include Steven Grosby and John Hutchinson).
«Nación, Estado y economía», de Ludwig von Mises - Nueva Revista
Tiempo de lectura: 7 min. Ludwig von Mises nació en Lemberg (actual Ucrania) en 1881. Filósofo y economista, es uno de los principales representantes de la Escuela Austriaca de Economía. Profesor en la Universidad de Viena, abandonó Europa en 1940 por la persecución nazi. Se asentó en Estados Unidos donde impartió clases en la Universidad de Nueva York, ciudad en la que murió en 1973. Sus obras son una defensa del liberalismo económico frente a la intervención del Estado.
“A Crisis in World History” – Peter Mentzel
Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) is known principally, and rightly, as one of the founders and chief theorists of the Austrian School of Economics. Perhaps less well-known are his important contributions to the social sciences, especially sociology and history. Mises’ second book, Nation, State, and Economy, (published in 1919 as Nation, Staat, und Wirtschaft, and kept in print by Liberty Fund) draws on all of these fields, as well as economics.
OLL's November Birthday: Voltaire (November 21, 1694 – May 30, 1778) | Online Library of Liberty
November’s OLL Birthday Essay is in honor of François Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire. A playwright, poet, historian, philosopher, and satirist, Voltaire literally defined the Age of Enlightenment, sometimes called simply the Age of Voltaire. Throughout his life, he was an indefatigable foe of all forms of tyranny and oppression, and a champion of free expression and freedom of religion.
OLL's October Birthday: Denis Diderot (October 5, 1713 – July 31, 1784) | Online Library of Liberty
October’s OLL Birthday Essay is in honor of the French polymath Denis Diderot. Most famous as the editor and inspiration of the Encyclopédie, Diderot also published works on philosophy and art, as well as novels, and plays, and was crucially important in establishing the intellectual framework for the French Revolution and the subsequent development of Liberalism. Diderot was born in the town of Langres, one of five children. His father, a cutler, sent him to study at the local Jesuit college.
OLL's May Birthday: Friedrich von Gentz (May 2, 1764 – June 9, 1832) | Online Library of Liberty
This May’s Birthday Essay is in honor of the political journalist and statesman Friedrich Gentz. Though born a commoner, he called himself von Gentz after he was knighted by the Swedish crown in 1804. Gentz made an intellectual journey over the course of his life, from revolutionary liberal, to Whiggish “conservative liberal,” to reactionary practitioner of Realpolitik, all in the context of the Napoleonic age.
OLL's April Birthday: Hugo Grotius (10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645) | Online Library of Liberty
April’s OLL Birthday essay is in honor of the Dutch political philosopher Hugo de Groot, Latinized as Grotius. Sometimes referred to as “the father of Natural Law,” his writings can be seen as marking the origins of Natural Law theory. His work thus signaled a fundamental turning point in political philosophy, especially in the field of International Relations, as well as the area of political sovereignty and religious toleration.
OLL's March Birthday: William Godwin (March 3, 1756 – April 7, 1836) | Online Library of Liberty
Godwin was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, son of John and Anne Godwin, the seventh of thirteen children. Both of his parents were Calvinists, and came from old Dissenting families, and John was a Nonconformist Minister. With such a family history, he was destined for the ministry and after a childhood being tutored as a strict Calvinist in 1771 he went to the Dissenting Academy in Hoxton, a center of liberal learning.
OLL's January Birthday: Samuel Pufendorf (January 8, 1632 – October 26, 1694) | Online Library of Liberty
This January’s OLL Birthday Essay is dedicated to the German philosopher Samuel Pufendorf, whose work on Natural Law built on that of Hobbes and Grotius and subsequently influenced the Scottish Enlightenment and all later thinking about Natural Law. Pufendorf was born in Dorfchemnitz, a small village near the town of Thalheim in Saxony. The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) was still raging, and the family was fully exposed to its horrors.
OLL's January Birthday: Samuel Pufendorf (January 8, 1632 – October 26, 1694) | Online Library of Liberty
Reading Room / OLL's January Birthday: Samuel Pufendorf (January 8, 1632 – October 26, 1694) This January’s OLL Birthday Essay is dedicated to the German philosopher Samuel Pufendorf, whose work on Natural Law built on that of Hobbes and Grotius and subsequently influenced the Scottish Enlightenment and all later thinking about Natural Law. Pufendorf was born in Dorfchemnitz, a small village near the town of Thalheim in Saxony.
OLL's December Birthday: John Milton (December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674) | Online Library of Liberty
John Milton was born, the second of three children, in London to John Milton and Sarah Jeffrey. John Milton, Sr. was a well-to-do notary, but also a musician and composer, and saw to it that his son received an excellent education from various tutors and, later, at Cambridge. He mastered several languages: not only the classical languages Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, but also Italian, Spanish, French, and Dutch.
OLL's November Birthday: Baruch Spinoza (November 24, 1632 – February 21, 1677) | Online Library of Liberty
This month’s featured birthday anniversary is the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, a.k.a, Benedict de Spinoza. A key figure in the history of Rationalism, he is also widely regarded as one of the most important expounders of the theology of pantheism. His religious views not only implied a powerful critique of sectarian religion, but provided a foundation for democratic political philosophy and formed the basis for an ethical system based on self-restraint and virtue.
OLL's October (Belated) Birthday: William Penn (October 14, 1644 – July 30, 1718) | Online Library of Liberty
Penn was born in London to Admiral William Penn and a Dutch mother, Margaret Jaspers, daughter of a wealthy merchant, in the early years of the English Civil War (1642-1650), a period of extreme political and social turmoil. Admiral Penn was a brave and capable mariner who fought on behalf of Oliver Cromwell, who became Lord Protector of the English Commonwealth in 1653, and was granted several estates in Ireland for his service.
OLL's March Birthday: Gustave de Molinari (March 3, 1819 – January 28, 1912) | Online Library of Liberty
Molinari’s father Philippe had been a physician in Napoleon’s army and had settled in Liège, after the Restoration. Gustave was born a few years later and enjoyed a comfortable life in a provincial city which was rapidly industrializing. When he was born, Liège was still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, but following a revolution in 1830, Liège became part of the new Kingdom of Belgium.
OLL's January Birthday: Francis Bacon (January 22, 1561 – April 9, 1626) | Online Library of Liberty
While a devout Anglican, Bacon also was careful to draw a sharp distinction between religion and science as two distinct and separate areas, and as a statesman and Member of Parliament, he was an early defender of some form of religious liberty for Catholics. Bacon was born in York House, near the Strand in London, into a distinguished family.
The Buddha and the Quest for Liberation
The Buddha (Sanskrit for “The Enlightened One”) is the title given to Siddhartha Gautama (563-483 BCE). His life and teachings formed the foundations of Buddhism, one of the world’s major religions. The Buddha’s biography and teachings together constitute a path toward liberation; specifically liberation from the pain and suffering of life, and especially liberation from the endless cycle of rebirths that constitute one of the main features of Vedic religion.
OLL's February Birthday: Thomas Paine (February 9, 1737 – June 8, 1809) | Online Library of Liberty
Reading Room / OLL's February Birthday: Thomas Paine (February 9, 1737 – June 8, 1809) This month’s featured birthday anniversary is the Anglo-American author and political activist Thomas Paine. Best known for his tremendously influential Rights of Man, he wrote many other important books and pamphlets, while also being a tireless supporter of the American and French Revolutions. Paine was born into a Quaker family in Thetford, England.
OLL's May Birthday--Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) | Online Library of Liberty
Reading Room / OLL's May Birthday--Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) May’s featured OLL Birthday is the Journalist, classical economist, historian, and political activist Karl Marx. Marx’s many contributions in these areas are so profound that it is scarcely possible to understand the history of the modern world without reference to his ideas and work. Karl Heinrich Marx was born in Trier, in the Prussian Rhineland, the eldest surviving son of nine children.
OLL's April Birthday: Mary Wollstonecraft (April 27, 1759- September 10, 1797)
Reading Room / OLL's April Birthday: Mary Wollstonecraft (April 27, 1759- September 10, 1797) This month’s featured birthday anniversary is the English philosopher, writer, and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Perhaps best known for her book Vindication of the Rights of Women, she was crucially important in the arguments about the proper education of girls and young women, and in the radical intellectual currents unleashed by the French Revolution.
OLL's August (Belated) Birthday: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (August 30, 1797 – February 1, 1851) | Online Library of Liberty
Mary was the daughter of William Godwin (1752-1836) and Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), two of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century’s most famous British intellectuals. Her father, a well known radical philosopher, is probably best known as an early proponent of utilitarianism and especially for his anarchist and proto-anarchist ideas. Her mother Mary is famous as a pioneering feminist, whose most influential book is the Vindication of the Rights of Women(1792).
OLL's October Birthday: Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque (October 25, 1767)
Reading Room / OLL's October Birthday: Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque (October 25, 1767) This month’s featured birthday anniversary is the Swiss-born French political philosopher, activist and statesman, Benjamin Constant. Along with his long-time friend and lover Germaine de Stael, and Democracy in America author Alexis de Tocqueville he is probably the most famous and influential of the French liberals of the early nineteenth century.
OLL's September Birthday: Henry George (September 2, 1839 -- October 29, 1890)
George was born into a lower-middle class family in Philadelphia, the second of ten children. His father, a devout Episcopalian and publisher of religious texts, sent his boy to a religious academy. But young Henry convinced his father instead to hire a tutor for him, whose lessons he supplemented with lectures from the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. At the age of 15 he went to sea on a ship that called, among other ports, at Melbourne, Australia, and Calcutta.
OLL's November Birthday: Pierre Bayle (November 22, 1647-December 28, 1706)
Reading Room / OLL's November Birthday: Pierre Bayle (November 22, 1647-December 28, 1706) November’s OLL Birthday essay is in honor of Pierre Bayle, a philosopher and theologian who exercised a profound influence on Enlightenment thinkers. His works regarding toleration, in particular, were at least as important as those of John Locke in his own time and for future arguments on the subject of toleration as well.
OLL's September Birthday: The Marquis de Condorcet
Reading Room / OLL's September Birthday: The Marquis de Condorcet September’s featured birthday anniversary belongs to Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, The Marquis de Condorcet, usually referred to simply by his title, or sometimes as Nicolas Condorcet. Sometimes called “the Last Witness of the Enlightenment” or “the Last Philosophe,” he was also a pioneer of the emerging social sciences.
Kalidasa and The Good Life
The Sanskrit poet Kalidasa lived and wrote in northern India during the Gupta dynasty (319-467 C.E.). Generally regarded as India’s greatest author, sometimes called the “Indian Shakespeare,” his work is known not only for its mastery of the Sanskrit language and the forms of classical Indian poetry and theater, but also for his penetrating and sensitive portrayals of his characters, and his beautiful and moving descriptions of nature.
OLL's August Birthday: Francis Hutcheson (August 8, 1694- August 8, 1746)
Despite his close connections to the Scottish Enlightenment, Hutcheson was born, and lived most of his life, in Ireland (though his father’s family was originally from Scotland). He was born on August 8, 1694, in Drumalig, County Down, near Saintfield, in northern Ireland. His father, the Reverend John Hutcheson, was a pastor in the Presbyterian Church. Unlike the situation in Scotland, the Presbyterians in Ireland were considered Dissenters and occupied a precarious legal and social position.
OLL's June Birthday: Harriet Martineau
Martineau was born into a solidly middle class, Unitarian family, the sixth of eight children. Her father, a textile manufacturer, made sure that all their children, boys and girls, received an excellent primary education. By the time she was fifteen she had already read Thomas Malthus’ work and was, in her own words, “becoming a political economist.” At a young age she already published articles in the Unitarian journal, the Monthly Repository, as well as a book of hymns.
OLL's July Birthday: Francesco Petrarch (July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374) | Online Library of Liberty
Reading Room / OLL's July Birthday: Francesco Petrarch (July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374) July’s featured birthday is Francesco Petrarca, usually rendered into English as Petrarch. A scholar, poet, and churchman, he is regarded as one of the first humanists and is sometimes even called the “Father of the Renaissance.” Notably, his name appears on the wall of the Goodrich Seminar Room.
OLL's August Birthday: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (August 28, 1749 – March 22, 1832) | Online Library of Liberty
Goethe was born in the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt am Main, in what is today the German state of Hesse. His father, Johann Caspar Goethe (1710-1782) the son of a wealthy inn-keeper, had some minor administrative posts, but provided for his family mainly out of his inherited fortune. His mother, Catherine Elisabeth Textor (1731-1808) was the daughter of one the most important officials of the city.
OLL's April Birthday: Herbert Spencer (April 27, 1820 – December 8, 1903) | Online Library of Liberty
April’s Birthday Essay is in honor of Herbert Spencer, a British polymath who was probably the most widely read intellectual in history, and who enjoyed tremendous fame during his lifetime, only to be largely forgotten after his death. Herbert Spencer was the eldest of nine children, but the only one to survive into adulthood.
OLL's January Birthday: Lord Acton
Although his family’s ancestral estate was in Aldenham, Shropshire, Lord Acton was born in Naples, capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, where his father, Sir Ferdinand Richard Edward Acton (1801–37) was a government official. His mother, Marie Louise Pelline von Dalberg (1813-1860), came from an important German noble family. After the death of her husband, she married the Liberal politician and stateman Lord Granville in 1840.
OLL's February Birthday: Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (February 28, 1533-September 13, 1592)
Instead, he celebrated the myriad possibilities to be found in human nature while simultaneously poking fun at our propensity towards intellectual pomposity and moral weakness, and ridiculing our propensity toward cruelty to our fellow human beings. His skepticism about the possibility of both abstract Reason and blind Religious dogmatism to save us from disaster was no doubt influenced by the horrors of the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598), which raged during his lifetime.
OLL's June Birthday: Wilhelm von Humboldt (June 22, 1767 – April 8, 1835) | Online Library of Liberty
Reading Room / OLL's June Birthday: Wilhelm von Humboldt (June 22, 1767 – April 8, 1835) June’s OLL Birthday Essay goes out to Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt, generally known to history as Wilhelm von Humboldt. A true polymath, he was a diplomat, philosopher, poet, linguist and anthropologist, who made crucial contributions to pedagogical theory and political philosophy.
OLL's July Birthday: Alexis de Tocqueville (July 29, 1805 to April 16, 1859)
Tocqueville was born into a very old noble family from Normandy. His great grandfather Malesherbes and several other relatives were executed during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution. His own father, a liberal aristocrat, narrowly avoided the guillotine himself. After the Bourbon Restoration, his father was appointed to several important political posts and was elevated to the peerage.
OLL's March Birthday: Franz Oppenheimer (March 30, 1864-September 30, 1843)
This month’s featured birthday anniversary is that of the German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer, best known for his work on the sociology of the State, which subsequently became tremendously influential among anarchist and libertarian political philosophers. Oppenheimer, a rabbi’s son, was born into a middle-class family in the suburbs of Berlin. He studied medicine in Freiburg and Berlin and practiced medicine in working-class districts of Berlin from 1886-1895.
OLL's May Birthday: Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803-April 27, 1882)
Emerson was born, the fifth of five children to survive to adulthood, on May 25, 1803 in Boston, Massachusetts, son of the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian pastor, himself descended from a long line of New England ministers. His father died in 1811 and he was raised thereafter by his mother and his Aunt Mary, a woman of strong Calvinist predilections.
The Analects: A Target of Tyrants for Two Thousand Years
Banned Books Week runs from October 1-7. Because the OLL supports wide access to knowledge, informed readers, and challenging questions, we'll be dedicating the entire month of October to blog posts about books that have been banned, challenged, and restricted.
Kalidasa and The Good Life
The Sanskrit poet Kalidasa lived and wrote in northern India during the Gupta dynasty (319-467 C.E.). Generally regarded as India’s greatest author, sometimes called the “Indian Shakespeare,” his work is known not only for its mastery of the Sanskrit language and the forms of classical Indian poetry and theater, but also for his penetrating and sensitive portrayals of his characters, and his beautiful and moving descriptions of nature.
OLL's May Birthday: Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803-April 27, 1882)
By: Peter Carl Mentzel May 24, 2023 May’s OLL Birthday essay is dedicated to the American essayist and poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Through his life of lecturing and writing, Emerson was a tireless supporter of the dignity and freedom of every individual. Emerson was born, the fifth of five children to survive to adulthood, on May 25, 1803 in Boston, Massachusetts, son of the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian pastor, himself descended from a long line of New England ministers.
OLL's April Birthday: Herbert Spencer (April 27, 1820 – December 8, 1903) | Online Library of Liberty
April’s Birthday Essay is in honor of Herbert Spencer, a British polymath who was probably the most widely read intellectual in history, and who enjoyed tremendous fame during his lifetime, only to be largely forgotten after his death. Herbert Spencer was the eldest of nine children, but the only one to survive into adulthood.
OLL's February Birthday: Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (February 28, 1533-September 13, 1592)
February’s OLL Birthday Essay celebrates the great French humanist and philosopher, Michel de Montaigne. Despite, or perhaps because of, his aristocratic heritage and privileged upbringing, he developed a non-pretentious personal style that was highly skeptical of social and intellectual pretentions.
OLL’s November Birthday: Pierre Bayle (November 22, 1647-December 28, 1706)
November’s OLL Birthday essay is in honor of Pierre Bayle, a philosopher and theologian who exercised a profound influence on Enlightenment thinkers. His works regarding toleration, in particular, were at least as important as those of John Locke in his own time and for future arguments on the subject of toleration as well. Pierre Bayle was born on November 22, 1647 in Carla-le-Comte (later renamed Carla-Bayle in his honor), the second of three boys. His father was a Calvinist pastor.
Nationalism and the Spirit of 1989
When asked about the significance of the French Revolution, the Chinese premier Zhou Enlai was alleged to have quipped, “it was too soon to tell.” But thirty years after the end of the communist regimes of East Central Europe, Professor Mahoney has made a bold effort to take stock of the Revolution of 1989. And indeed, thirty years of distance has made possible the formulation of some tentative conclusions about the events of that incredible year.
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