Busy, busy, busy day today. But the good news is that I was finally able to pick up the copy of "Radicals for Capitalism" that I ordered months ago. Thank you, United States Postal Service. It's certainly a book that I'll be commenting on as I get through it, but in the mean time I'll satisfy myself by pointing out some interesting reviews.

Bill Steigerwald has an interview with Brian Doherty. This portion ties directly to my recent discussion on libertarianism and its love of American history.

Q: Is or was America ever a libertarian country?

A: Never in practice. Philosophically, it was extremely libertarian in its founding, but due to the religious and social mores of the time, there were all sorts of restrictions on what people could actually do – including some vagrancies laws that basically didn’t allow certain people to even walk into certain cities unless they lived there or had jobs. And of course, the status of blacks and women, which were horrendous in libertarian terms pretty much until the mid 20th century, prevented the political philosophy from functioning in a libertarian way. So no, libertarian remains a cause whose full flowering remains for the future while being rooted in core American ideas. The 19th century, despite popular myth, was not an era of rampant laissez-faire, which I discuss in my book.

Jeff Riggenbach at Rational Review gives his opinion. His opinion is long, very long, and ranges from criticism to praise. There's a lot that he responds to, which is what you can expect for a book that is 768 pages long. It's worth the read, if you can get through it.

Has anyone else read the book yet?