Name: Natural Rights, the Common Good, and the American Revolution
Brand: Yuval Levin
Price: 18.0 USD
Availability: InStock

Yuval Levin

Natural Rights, the Common Good, and the American Revolution

$18.00

The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of American independence, yet the founding is controversial now in ways it has not been in decades.

The American Enterprise Institute offers a major intellectual and educational project to reintroduce Americans to the unique value of their national inheritance. In the fourth volume of this series, legal scholars and political scientists examine the many ways in which the founding generation understood the “unalienable rights” immortalized by the Declaration of Independence.

Although the Declaration described the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as a “self-evident” truth, this characterization belied the Revolutionary era’s complex discourse on the origins of political rights and their role in sustaining a political community.

Delving into these debates reveals how the American Revolution encoded a productive tension between individual rights and communal responsibilities at the nation’s founding.

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Yuval Levin

Religion and the American Revolution

$18.00

The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of American independence, yet the founding is controversial now in ways it has not been in decades. The American Enterprise Institute offers a major intellectual and educational project to reintroduce Americans to the unique value of their national inheritance.

In the third volume of this series, scholars of American history and law consider the place of religion in the American Revolution. Many who participated in the American fight for independence viewed the cause as a fundamentally spiritual struggle, one with enormous implications for religion’s future in American civil society.

Exploring the multifaceted ways in which the founding generation understood religious freedom and worked to balance protections for diverse religious communities with the rights of individual conscience illuminates the commitment to liberty at the heart of the American project.

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Naomi Schaefer Riley

Mind the Children

$26.00

Why are so many children and teens today struggling with depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges, and who or what is to blame? Mind the Children provides insight into the scale, scope, and causes of the youth mental health crisis. From the decline in family life and religious affiliation to the rise in marijuana use and the ubiquity of cell phones and other screens, this book explores the cultural, institutional and technological changes that are making kids' lives more difficult.

Contributors to the book -journalists, researchers, and clinicians- address topics as varied as how schools may paradoxically worsen matters they are trying to address, how political rhetoric may affect children's ability to cope with ordinary challenges, and how to reverse the shortage of professionals available to help kids. Mind the Children will help parents and policymakers gain a comprehensive understanding of a multifaceted problem, which other experts have been too quick to trace to a single cause.

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Dr. Nicholas Z. Muller

Using Marginal Damages in Environmental Policy

$76.00

This technical volume makes the case that air pollution policy in the United States can be improved through consideration of both the marginal abatement costs facing regulated sources, and the marginal damages associated with their emissions. The preferred approach is a fully efficient regulatory scheme. Recognizing that completely reforming today's regulatory program, which consists of a mix of command-and-control policies and cap-and-trade programs, is not likely to be easy in the short run, the authors propose a prioritization scheme for regulatory reform. This scheme ranks sources according to the net marginal damage of additional emissions. Policymakers should focus reforms on those sources and pollutants with the largest differences between marginal damages and marginal costs; this will yield the greatest return on incremental investments in abatement.

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Dan Blumenthal

The China Nightmare

$20.00

This is a book about China's grand strategy and its future as an ambitious, declining, and dangerous rival power. Once the darling of U.S. statesmen, corporate elites, and academics, the People's Republic of China has evolved into America's most challenging strategic competitor. Its future appears increasingly dystopian. This book tells the story of how China got to this place and analyzes where it will go next and what that will mean for the future of U.S. strategy. The China Nightmare makes an extraordinarily compelling case that China's future could be dark and the free world must prepare accordingly.

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Dr. Philip I. Levy

Swap

$8.99

A concise introduction to the principles of world economics, Swap is an easy-to-understand resource for a general audience. This brief, practical volume covers the principles of specialization, comparative advantage, deficits, supply chains, labor and environmental standards, trade with the developing world, and more.

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Diana Furchtgott-Roth

Women's Figures

$56.00

The myth that women make 78 cents on a man’s dollar is a standard refrain in popular media and serves as a rationale for affirmative action for women. Unstated is that for women and men with the same job and work experience, the wage gap practically disappears. In Women’s Figures, Manhattan Senior Fellow Diana Furchtgott-Roth shatters the myth of the wage gap. Women are continuing to gain ground relative to men, and in some cases, they have even reversed the gender gap. Rather than helping women, preferential policies undermine America’s idea of meritocracy, and call into question the value of women’s hard-earned achievements.

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Dr. Roger Bate

Phake:

$47.50

Roger Bate has spent years on the trail of counterfeit medicines in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, learning the anatomy of a nebulous, far-reaching black market that has resulted in countless deaths and injuries around the world. Phake: The Deadly World of Falsified and Substandard Medicines is the culmination of Bate's research and travels—both a fascinating firsthand account of the counterfeit drug trade and an incisive policy analysis with important ramifications for decision makers in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the international World Health Organization.

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John H. Makin

An Economist's Outlook

$33.00

John Makin experienced and wrote persuasively about many of the most important economic events of the post–Cold War period. A University of Chicago–trained economist, Makin brought to his writing the benefits of academe, domestic public- and private-sector experience, and close observation of international economic developments. An Economist’s Outlook: Essays by John H. Makin from a Transformative Era brings together some of his most important writings. They provide unique insights into economic events from 1992 to 2014, a tumultuous, transformative period beginning with the end of the Cold War. This collection begins with a look at fundamentals of economic policy, exploring concepts such as inflation, disinflation, and deflation. The second section applies Makin’s keen understanding to events in the US and abroad, with particular emphasis on Japan’s economic experience, the tech and housing bubbles, and the financial crash. Makin was an important voice on economic issues in the think tank and policy worlds

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Dr. Alan D. Viard

Progressive Consumption Taxation

$78.50

Alone among developed countries, the United States has no broad-based national consumption tax. Yet, economic analysis suggests that consumption taxation is superior to income taxation because it does not penalize saving and investment. The authors conclude that the U.S. income tax system should be completely replaced by a progressive consumption tax. The authors argue that the X tax, developed by the late David Bradford, offers the best form of progressive consumption taxation for the United States. To achieve progressively, the X tax modifies the value added tax by splitting its consumption tax base into two components, wages and business cash flow. The X tax applies graduated tax rates to households’ wages and applies a flat tax rate, equal to the highest wage tax rate, to business firms’ cash flows. The authors outline concrete proposals for the X tax’s treatment of pensions and fringe benefits, business firms, financial intermediaries, international transactions, owner-occupied housing, state and local governments, the transition, and other issues. By adopting the X tax, the United States can preserve tax progressively while promoting economic growth through the removal of tax penalties on saving and investment.

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Dr. Vincent H. Smith

Agricultural Policy in Disarray

$47.50

From any coherent policy perspective, agricultural policy in the United States is in total disarray. Not surprisingly, persistent and pervasive rent-seeking by well-funded lobbies explains many of the complex and often internally inconsistent federal programs that fall under the umbrella of US agricultural policy. This two-volume examination of US agricultural policies includes analyses on the federal crop insurance program, the sugar program, constraints on domestic production, and policy-mandated price discrimination. Those subsidy programs and other forms of support are deliberately structured to funnel the vast majority of their benefits to large farm businesses and, in the case of agricultural insurance, an entire segment of the insurance industry that would not otherwise exist. They do nothing to alleviate rural poverty and in most cases encourage farm and other agricultural businesses to waste some of society’s scarce resources. Some federal programs do provide benefits for society as a whole. However, collusion among lobbies with competing interests has caused many of those programs to be inefficient. Agricultural Policy in Disarray provides fascinating, detailed, and contemporary evidence of how rent-seeking by small, well-organized interest groups results in government policies that do little good and much harm.

Dr. Jeffrey R. Brown

Public Insurance and Private Markets

$70.00

As America debates the merits of government-provided health insurance, it is important to note that the U.S. government is already the largest insurance provider in the world. For decades, it has used taxpayer funds to support the world's largest health care insurance programs (Medicare and Medicaid) as well as the biggest pension and disability insurance system (Social Security). The recent economic crisis has prompted the government to dramatically increase its insurance role by assuming large equity positions in private firms and bailing out troubled mortgages buyers and sellers. Do these public insurance programs improve social welfare? Or does government intervention risk moral hazard and result in inefficient programs that would be better handled by the private sector? In Public Insurance and Private Markets, leading economists critically examine the government's role in insuring against pension fund shortfalls, crop losses, property damage from floods and other natural catastrophes, bank failure, and terrorism. Jeffrey R. Brown and his coauthors argue that government intervention must always be economically justified; that risk adjusted premiums are essential; that the true taxpayer burden for public insurance programs must be recognized; and that private markets are capable of transferring risk without government intervention. Poorly designed government insurance programs result in misallocation of resources, excessive risk-taking, and potentially enormous burdens on current and future taxpayers. Public Insurance and Private Markets offers market-based guidelines for the proper scope of government intervention and the design of public insurance programs_guidelines that will benefit the U.S. economy and protect the resources of future generations.

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Dr. Michael R. Strain

The US Labor Market

$117.50

Public policy is rightly concerned with fostering a vibrant labor market in which individuals can earn their own success, realize their potential, and enjoy the dignity that hard work provides. But public policy faces serious challenges in today’s labor market: low workforce participation and high unemployment among many Americans, technological innovation, globalization, persistent poverty, education and training, and public policy’s unintended consequences are just a few. Which characteristics of today’s labor market demand attention? Which are simply realities to be accepted? And how should policy respond? Asking the right questions is a good place to start, and this volume asks some of the most important: Should we be concerned about economic mobility and inequality? What is the relationship between productivity and compensation, immigrants and native workers, public policy and labor supply, and corporate taxes and employment? How can we make work pay, and build workers’ skills? What can be done for workers who are difficult to employ? A competitive market in ideas is the best mechanism to understand the world, and to find the best solutions to problems. This volume makes manifest that proposition, answering each of the questions outlined above—twice, with two papers authored by economists. Each paper offers a different point of view and a different emphasis. This volume will inform policy for many years to come, helping to move policy in a direction that will better allow all of us to contribute, and to lead lives of fulfillment through work.

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Christopher Yoo

The Dynamic Internet

$76.00

The Dynamic Internet: How Technology, Users, and Businesses are Changing the Network offers a comprehensive history of the Internet and efforts to regulate its use. University of Pennsylvania law professor Christopher S. Yoo contends that rather than engaging in prescriptive regulatory oversight, the government should promote competition in other ways, such as reducing costs for consumers, lowering entry barriers for new producers, and increasing transparency. These reforms would benefit consumers while permitting the industry to develop new solutions for emerging problems. It is fruitless for government to attempt to lock the burgeoning online industry into any particular architecture; rather, policymakers should act with the knowledge that no one actor can foresee how the network is likely to evolve in the future.

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Dr. Vincent H. Smith

Agricultural Policy in Disarray

$47.50

From any coherent policy perspective, agricultural policy in the United States is in total disarray. Not surprisingly, persistent and pervasive rent-seeking by well-funded lobbies explains many of the complex and often internally inconsistent federal programs that fall under the umbrella of US agricultural policy. This two-volume examination of US agricultural policies includes analyses on the federal crop insurance program, the sugar program, constraints on domestic production, and policy-mandated price discrimination. Those subsidy programs and other forms of support are deliberately structured to funnel the vast majority of their benefits to large farm businesses and, in the case of agricultural insurance, an entire segment of the insurance industry that would not otherwise exist. They do nothing to alleviate rural poverty and in most cases encourage farm and other agricultural businesses to waste some of society’s scarce resources. Some federal programs do provide benefits for society as a whole. However, collusion among lobbies with competing interests has caused many of those programs to be inefficient. Agricultural Policy in Disarray provides fascinating, detailed, and contemporary evidence of how rent-seeking by small, well-organized interest groups results in government policies that do little good and much harm.

Gordon H. Hanson

Regulating Low-Skilled Immigration in the United States

$29.50

With 11.9 million undocumented residents in the United States and illegal entrants accounting for nearly half of the low-skilled foreign workforce, there is widespread agreement that the current U.S. immigration system is broken. Past reform agendas have emphasized strengthening border security, increasing the number of visas for foreign guest workers, and defining a path to legal residence for illegal immigrants already living in the country. When the Obama administration addresses immigration reform-as it has promised to do before 2012-should it pick up where previous reform proposals left off? In Regulating Low Skilled Immigration in the United States, Gordon H. Hanson contends that efforts to curtail illegal entry will fail unless policymakers design a system that is responsive to market signals that encourage individuals to move from low-wage labor markets in regions such as Central America to the more robust labor market in United States. On the whole, immigration benefits the U.S. economy by raising national income and making domestic capital more productive. However, increasing the low-skilled population may also increase the net tax burden on native residents. Successful reform depends on attracting immigrants with strong incentives to be productive laborers who will not place excessive demands on public services. Illegal immigration, as regulated by market forces, largely satisfies these criteria, but at the cost of undermining the rule of law and leaving the immigrant population unprotected. To create a better system for managing low-skilled immigration, Hanson argues, Congress should preserve the features of the current regime that serve the country well and strip away the features that corrode civil society and harm immigrants.

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Dr. Steven F. Hayward

Mere Environmentalism

$8.99

As debates over climate change rage in Washington and American consumers become ever more conscientious about 'going green,' evangelical Christians are increasingly concerned about the proper relationship between faith and environmentalism. The notion of human 'stewardship' over God's creation could be a groundbreaking opportunity for cooperation between evangelicals, the scientific community, and environmental activists. However, a deep understanding of environmental issues from a distinctively Christian perspective will inevitably complicate partnerships with those who approach the subject from conventional secular viewpoints. Although there is some common ground, there remain important differences between Christian and secular perspectives on the environment. Are human beings merely one 'part' of the undifferentiated whole of nature? Or, worse, are humans a blight and a drain on God's perfect creation? Do we really 'own' the land we live on and the plants and animals that provide our sustenance? The answers to these questions begin to form a Christian approach to solving ecological problems. In Mere Environmentalism: A Biblical Perspective on Humans and the Natural World, Steven F. Hayward provides a thorough examination of the philosophical presuppositions underlying today's environmentalist movement and the history of policies intended to alleviate environmental challenges such as overpopulation and global warming. Relying on Scripture to understand God's created order, Hayward offers an insightful reflection on the relationship between humans and the natural world.

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Michael M. Rosen

Like Silicon From Clay

$30.00

How can we reconcile competing claims about artificial intelligence in today’s policy debate? Will AI herald a technological utopia filled with scientific breakthroughs that extend and enhance life, or will the machines we create turn on us and usher in the apocalypse? Will chatbots stifle creativity and crush the human spirit, or are they just reflections of ourselves, for better or worse? As we grapple with these questions, technologists, philosophers, entrepreneurs, writers, artists, and elected officials have espoused approaches to AI advances that appear fundamentally at odds with each other.

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Kevin A. Hassett

Rethinking Competitiveness

$124.00

Few politicians can make a speech concerning economic policy without using the term “competitiveness.” Yet, despite its frequent and casual use, there is little if any agreement on its meaning. Scholars have been slow to embrace the term, holding a healthy skepticism toward such political utterances. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) brought together experts from a variety of fields to discuss the issue of competitiveness and how it may influence their disciplines. This volume is composed of nine prominent scholars' interpretations of and answers to the question: “If ‘competitiveness’ were to have a rigorous and relevant meaning in your field, what might that be?” The conclusions these papers reach enrich the debate on what competitiveness is and how policymakers should strive to support it in the realms of tax policy, education policy, immigration, health care, international trade and much more.

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June E. O'Neill

The Declining Importance of Race and Gender in the Labor Market

$101.50

The Declining Importance of Race and Gender in the Labor Market provides historical background on employment discrimination and wage discrepancies in the United States and on government efforts to address employment discrimination. It examines the two federal institutions tasked with enforcing Title VII and the 1964 Civil Rights Act: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). It also provides a quantitative analysis of racial and gender wage gaps and seeks to determine what role, if any, the EEOC and the OFCCP had in narrowing these gaps over time and analyzes the data to determine the extent of employment discrimination today.

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Dr. Robert Maranto

The Politically Correct University

$36.00

The Politically Correct University shows how the universities' quest for 'diversity' has produced in too many departments a stifling uniformity of thought. Required reading for those who want American universities to eschew political correctness

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Anupam B. Jena

Health and Wealth Disparities in the United States

$42.00

Traditional measures of economic disparities among Americans of different race, gender, geographic location, and education level consider only material well-being, so that making two groups economically "equal" is as simple as matching their monetary incomes. This narrow focus on income may not, however, lead to a complete understanding of economic prosperity in the United States. Differences in health and longevity are also important dimensions of a populations overall well-being. In this volume, Anupam B. Jena, Tomas J. Philipson, and Eric C. Sun formally incorporate the effects of health into an analysis of economic disparities in America from 1940 to 200. They find that accounting for the value of health dramatically affects our understanding of wealth levels across groups-particularly across races. The income levels of blacks and whites followed a convergent trend until the 1970's, after which the rate of convergence slowed and even reversed slightly, suggesting that blacks' rate of economic progress has dwindled. However, when health gains are incorporated, the picture changes significantly. Black men and women made much faster improvements in health than white men and women over this sixty year period. Therefore, although black and white incomes have not converged fully, the overall disparity decreases when health is incorporated into the analysis. Jena, Philipson, and Sun conclude that even if income disparities remain vast across groups, disparities in general welfare may be shrinking as minorities and poorer populations see significant improvements in health-a finding that has important policy implications for the design of programs aimed at equalizing income across the U.S. Population.

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Peter J. Wallison

Bad History, Worse Policy

$123.50

This timely study focuses on how the government-constructed narratives surrounding the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the 2008 financial crisis shaped the policymaking that led to the Dodd-Frank Act. The book shows that every major provision of the act can be traced directly to that narrative, which ignored the government’s own role and focused entirely on the errors of the private sector. In the next Congress, whether or not the Republicans are in control of the House and Senate, there will be a concerted effort to make changes in—or even repeal—the Dodd-Frank Act. The essays in this book, originally published by AEI as Financial Services Outlooks, and the accompanying commentary provide a thorough backgrounder for anyone interested in financial policy.

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John C. Weicher

Housing Policy at a Crossroads

$117.50

Since Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, American housing policy has focused on building homes for the poor. But seventy-five years of federal housing projects have not significantly ameliorated crime, decreased unemployment, or improved health; recent reforms have failed to revitalize low-income neighborhoods or stimulate the economy. To be successful in the twenty-first century, American housing policy must stop reinventing failed programs. Housing Policy at a Crossroads: The Why, How, and Who of Assistance Programs provides a comprehensive survey of past low-income housing programs, including public and subsidized housing, tax credits for developers, and block grants for state and local governments. John C. Weicher's comparative analysis of these programs yields several key conclusions: Affordability, not quality, is the most pressing challenge for housing policy today; of all the housing programs, vouchers have provided the most choice for the poor at the lowest cost to the taxpayer; because vouchers are much less expensive than public or subsidized housing, future subsidized projects would be an inefficient use of resources; vouchers should be offered only to the poorest members of society, ensuring that aid is available to those who need it most. At once a history of housing policy, a guide to issues confronting policymakers, and a case for vouchers as the cheapest, most effective solution, Housing Policy at a Crossroads is a timely warning that reinventing failed building programs would be a very costly wrong turn for America.

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Dr. Charles Murray

In Our Hands

$15.99

Imagine that the United States were to scrap all its income transfer programs—including Social Security, Medicare, and all forms of welfare—and give every American age twenty-one and older $10,000 a year for life.This is the Plan, a radical new approach to social policy that defies any partisan label. First laid out by Charles Murray a decade ago, the updated edition reflects economic developments since that time. Murray, who previous books include Losing Ground and The Bell Curve, demonstrates that the Plan is financially feasible and the uses detailed analysis to argue that many goals of the welfare state—elimination of poverty, comfortable retirement for everyone, universal access to healthcare—would be better served under the Plan than under the current system. Murray’s goal, shared by Left and Right, is a society in which everyone, including the unluckiest among us, has the opportunity and means to construct a satisfying life. In Our Hands offers a rich and startling new way to think about how that goal

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Ali Alfoneh

Iran Unveiled

$109.00

In Iran Unveiled, Middle East expert Ali Alfoneh describes the coming revolt of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and the implications this would have on regional and international politics. As Iran experiences the most important change in its history since the revolution of 1979 and the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the regime in Tehran, traditionally ruled by the Shia clergy, is transforming into a military dictatorship dominated by the officers of the IRGC. This transformation is changing not only the economy and society in Iran, but also the Islamic Republic’s relations with the United States and its allies. This book provides the legal, historical, ideological and military frameworks for what Alfoneh believes to be an escalating and inevitable revolution in Iran. Iran Unveiled informs and educates anyone with an interest in Iran-US relations and the future of Middle eastern politics at a time at a time of growing tension in one of the world's most unstable but indispensable political zones.

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Dr. Pia M. Orrenius

Beside the Golden Door

$44.50

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'_the last line of Emma Lazarus's famous poem invites immigrants to enter a land of economic opportunity. Many have accepted that invitation; today, foreign-born workers make up nearly 16 percent of the U.S. workforce and account for almost half of workforce growth over the last decade. Rather than capitalizing on these gains, however, recent immigration reforms have resulted in an inefficient, patchwork system that shortchanges high-skilled immigrants and poorly serves the American public. Beside the Golden Door: U.S. Immigration Reform in a New Era of Globalization proposes a radical overhaul of current immigration policy designed to strengthen economic competitiveness and long-run growth. Pia M. Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny outline a plan that favors employment-based immigration over family reunification, making work-based visas the rule, not the exception. They argue that immigration policy should favor high-skilled workers while retaining avenues for low-skilled immigration; family reunification should be limited to spouses and minor children; provisional visas should be the norm; and quotas that lead to queuing must be eliminated. A selective immigration policy focused on high-skilled, high-demand workers will allow the United States to compete in an increasingly global economy while protecting the interests of American citizens and benefiting taxpayers. Orrenius and Zavodny conclude that 'while not all potential immigrants who knock at the golden door should be admitted, the door should swing wide open to welcome those who desire nothing more than the opportunity to work for the American dream.'

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Kenneth Green

Abundant Energy

$8.99

Human beings depend on energy. From burning wood to harnessing the atom, we have relied on the consumption of natural resources. As civilization grows and the demand for energy increases, we must ask ourselves how to best meet our energy needs while responsibly stewarding our resources. In Abundant Energy: The Fuel of Human Flourishing, Kenneth P. Green provides a brief history of our reliance on different sources of energy, explores the viability of both current and potential future sources, and offers a vision for the task of fueling human prosperity in the 21st century.

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Vaclav Smil

Energy Myths and Realities

$46.00

There are many misconceptions about the future of global energy often presented as fact by the media, politicians, business leaders, activists, and even scientists—wasting time and money and hampering the development of progressive energy policies. Energy Myths and Realities: Bringing Science to the Energy Policy Debate debunks the most common fallacies to make way for a constructive, scientific approach to the global energy challenge. When will the world run out of oil? Should nuclear energy be adopted on a larger scale? Are ethanol and wind power viable sources of energy for the future? Vaclav Smil advises the public to be wary of exaggerated claims and impossible promises. The global energy transition will be prolonged and expensive—and hinges on the development of an extensive new infrastructure. Established technologies and traditional energy sources are persistent and adaptable enough to see the world through that transition. Energy Myths and Realities brings a scientific perspective to an issue often dominated by groundless assertions, unfounded claims, and uncritical thinking. Before we can create sound energy policies for the future, we must renounce the popular myths that cloud our judgment and impede true progress.

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Dr. Richard V. Burkhauser

The Declining Work and Welfare of People with Disabilities

$56.00

The U.S. disability insurance system is an important part of the federal social safety net; it provides financial protection to working-age Americans who have illnesses, injuries, or conditions that render them unable to work as they did before becoming disabled or that prevent them from adjusting to other work. An examination of the workings of the system, however, raises deep concerns about its financial stability and effectiveness. Disability rolls are rising, household income for the disabled is stagnant, and employment rates among people with disabilities are at an all-time low. Mary Daly and Richard Burkhauser contend that these outcomes are not inevitable; rather, they are reflections of the incentives built into public policies targeted at those with disabilities, namely the SSDI, SSI-disabled adults, and SSI-disabled children benefit programs. The Declining Work and Welfare of People with Disabilities considers how policies could be changed to improve the well-being of people with disabilities and to

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Dr. Christopher Conover

American Health Economy Illustrated

$18.99

How much does the average American spend on health care? Are costs and quality of health care equal across US states? Do Americans get good value for money spent on health services compared with citizens of other developed nations? Are current health spending trends sustainable through the 21st century? All too often, policymakers and the public alike form judgments about health care based on myths and misconceptions. A common refrain is that US health care is too expensive — both in costs to the taxpayer and costs to the consumer. But few realize that despite its lack of national health insurance, the United States leads nearly all other industrialized nations in the share of health spending paid by third parties, whether public or private. Americans, therefore, are less sensitive to health care prices than citizens of other nations. American Health Economy Illustrated sifts through nearly a century of data to examine — and debunk — the most common myths about the US health care system. With an unbiased, just-the-facts approach and hundreds of color illustrations, Christopher J. Conover assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the current system and evaluates whether current health cost trends are sustainable. Wide-ranging, accessible, and provocative, this book is a must-read for anyone concerned with the future of American health care.

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Yuval Levin

Democracy and the American Revolution

$15.00

The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of American independence, yet the founding is controversial now in ways it has not been in decades. The American Enterprise Institute offers a major intellectual and educational project to reintroduce Americans to the unique value of their national inheritance. In the inaugural volume of an eight-book series, renowned historians and political scientists explore what the contested idea of democracy meant to those who participated in the American Revolution. For some, democracy represented a particular way to order government, while others understood democracy to be a transformative principle that would serve as the philosophical bedrock of not just the new republic's political institutions but its social and cultural ones as well. Examining the democratic culture that was born out of the American Revolution can help us understand the framework within which we continue to debate the structure and purpose of the system of government that binds us together today.

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Gary Schmitt

Rise of the Revisionists

$20.00

Rise of the Revisionists: Russia, China, and Iran is a five-essay volume, edited by the American Enterprise Institute’s Gary J. Schmitt, that examines the three rising powers as they challenge the US and the global order in three critical regions of the world. Essays by the American Enterprise Institute’s Frederick W. Kagan on Russia and Dan Blumenthal on China and by Foundation for the Defense of Democracies Senior Fellow Reuel Marc Gerecht on Iran analyze the historical roots of each country’s ambitions, their strategic goals, and possible US policies for meeting the challenges and threats posed by each. Those essays are framed by an introduction by Gary Schmitt that places the tests facing the US foreign policy in a broader strategic framework and by a concluding essay by Hudson Institute Scholar Walter Russell Mead that looks to the Father of History, Thucydides, to provide insight into the complex set of domestic and foreign realities that shape American statecraft in this most challenging time.

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Dr. Benjamin Zycher

Renewable Electricity Generation

$37.00

This volume examines the outlook for renewable energy in electricity generation-particularly wind and solar power-as a substitute for conventional fuels such as coal and natural gas. Economist Benjamin Zycher evaluates the central arguments in favor of policies that would make way for broader use of renewables and concludes that all are deeply problematic. "Renewable" energy sources are not superior in cost to conventional fuels; nor are they less taxing on the environment. The popular argument that increased use of renewables will create "green jobs" is likewise a fallacy-because wind and solar power are costly and inefficient, the net economic impact is a negative one. Zycher concludes that resource-use behaviors emerging from market competition are the best guides to effective, sustainable energy policies.

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James Q. Wilson

American Politics, Then & Now: And Other Essays

$28.50

James Q. Wilson is one of America’s preeminent public policy scholars. For decades, he has analyzed the changing political and cultural landscape with clarity and honesty, bringing his wisdom to bear on all facets of American government and society. American Politics, Then & Now is a collection of fifteen of Wilson’s most insightful essays–drawing on thirty years of his observations on religion, crime, the media, terrorism and extremism, and the old-fashioned notion of “character.” Readers of every political persuasion will come away from this volume with a new understanding of how American politics and culture have evolved over the last half-century. These essays are not “the grumpy words of a conservative who can’t be reconciled to the realities of contemporary American life,” Wilson writes. Rather, they are straight talk from a painstaking empiricist and consummate social scientist who believes in American exceptionalism. American Politics, Then & Now is a compelling portrait of a beloved nation.

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James C. Capretta

US Health Policy and Market Reforms

$28.50

Health care has been a prominent topic in the US national political conversation for decades, with no end in sight. The status quo, even before the COVID-19 pandemic exposed flaws in the nation’s public health system, has been too dysfunctional for the issue to fall far down the list of voter priorities. Among other things, a large segment of the US population remains uninsured, and the relentless annual increase in medical care costs in excess of income growth is placing increasing financial strain on households and governments. While these problems have fueled a strong desire for change, there is a divide over how to proceed, which has made reaching consensus elusive. Most Americans are familiar with the views advanced by one side of the debate. Medicare for All, which would have the federal government run a public insurance plan for the entire country, is the paradigmatic reform advanced by those who favor full governmental control. It and similar reforms have been discussed widely in recent years in high-profile political campaigns. The alternative—more reliance on market forces—is less well-known or understood, partly because there is less consensus among those who favor it on what it would entail. This volume attempts to describe in some detail one version of such a plan. It also explains the major features of current US health policy and the relevant history of how we arrived at this point, because the proposed reforms are best understood in relation to the incumbent system. In general terms, the recommended changes would inject more discipline and consumer choice into what already exists rather than replace it with something entirely new. The focus of the recommendations is not on better readiness for the next pandemic or public health crisis. That certainly should be a priority for Congress. However, even if such improvements get approved, the nation’s underlying system of insurance and care providers will remain mired in dysfunction. The focus of this volume is on reforming that system to better deliver services that patients need regardless of whether a pandemic is creating global turmoil.

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Dr. Gary J. Schmitt

Safety, Liberty, and Islamist Terrorism

$46.50

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, produced a revolution in domestic security in the United States. The Bush administration responded quickly by aggressively enforcing existing laws, sponsoring new legislation, overhauling domestic intelligence, and employing the president's executive power in ways that drew criticism from civil libertarians on both the left and right. Many hoped that the succeeding administration would adopt a more 'European' approach to domestic security-an approach typically understood to be more compatible with the rule of law and friendlier to civil liberties. But Europe has suffered major terrorist attacks as well-in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005-and terrorist plots continue to plague America's European allies. Has this shared experience engendered a common approach to domestic security, or, as many believe, is there a transatlantic divide in counterterrorism strategy? In Safety, Liberty, and Islamist Terrorism: American and European Approaches to Domestic Counterterrorism, Gary J. Schmitt leads a group of security and intelligence experts in analyzing the domestic counterterrorism regimes of the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, and the United States. The author's in-depth analysis provides a unique window into the similarities and differences among the counterterrorism efforts of these major democracies and explores the possibilities (and limitations) of applying one country's lessons to another. Safety, Liberty, and Islamist Terrorism concludes with a broad assessment of the changes made to U.S. counterterrorism strategy since 9/11 in comparison with current European laws, institutions, and practices, and with policies instituted during past American domestic security crises. The analysis uncovers evidence of a shared strategic imperative: preemption. For the United States, preemption occurs both at home and on battlefields abroad, while for Europe, preemption is primarily a domestic affair, often resulting in laws that allow more aggressive policing of terrorist actvity than occurs in the United States. The comparison also yields insights about how the transatlantic community has balanced the need to address the jihadist threat with maintaining civic order at home. Although no country has a perfect record, Schmitt contends that changes made to domestic security policy in response to the terrorist threat have not undermined the United States and Europe's shared commitment to democracy and liberty. 'Certainly, tradeoffs have been made between individual liberties and domestic security,' Schmitt writes. 'But if we take the broad view, we are struck by how minimal those intrusions on our liberties have been, given the threat we face.'

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Peter J. Wallison

Dissent from the Majority Report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

$44.50

The Declining Importance of Race and Gender in the Labor Market provides historical background on employment discrimination and wage discrepancies in the United States and on government efforts to address employment discrimination. It examines the two federal institutions tasked with enforcing Title VII and the 1964 Civil Rights Act: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). It also provides a quantitative analysis of racial and gender wage gaps and seeks to determine what role, if any, the EEOC and the OFCCP had in narrowing these gaps over time and analyzes the data to determine the extent of employment discrimination today.

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Peter J. Wallison

The Administrative State Before the Supreme Court

$40.00

In The Administrative State Before the Supreme Court: Perspectives on the Nondelegation Doctrine, leading scholars consider a revival of the Constitution’s nondelegation doctrine—the separation-of-powers principle that bars Congress from transferring its legislative powers to the administrative agencies. Although the nondelegation doctrine has lain dormant since 1935, some Supreme Court justices have recently called for its return. As the Supreme Court takes up the doctrine in current cases, this volume makes a timely contribution to our understanding of the separation of powers and the Constitution.

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Daniel Blumenthal

An Awkward Embrace

$74.00

In Awkward Embrace, Phillip Swagel applies his experience at the Treasury Department to show the reader why America’s economic relationship with China has been a beneficial one and details what needs to happen for this trend to continue. Daniel Blumenthal, a former official specializing in Asia at the Department of Defense, is far less optimistic when examining the military, diplomatic, and security ties the United States has—or lacks—with China. China’s overall view of the West—and especially of America—is one of hostility and suspicion. Furthermore, China has engaged in military, diplomatic, and human rights actions that are objectionable to a nation such as the United States, which seeks to encourage the establishment of responsible government worldwide. The tension here is real: how can the United States manage this relationship in a way that keeps its economic engagement with China on a steady course but likewise protects its national security interests? Blumenthal and Swagel offer three possible paths for the U.S.-China relationship. In all of them, they strive to demonstrate how internal forces are shaping China’s interactions with other nations, and, furthermore, how US leaders can attempt to attain a world order that includes a strong China that contributes positively, while nonetheless preparing for the worst-case-scenario of China engaging in more assertive and destabilizing behavior.

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Jon Entine

Crop Chemophobia

$56.00

The Green Revolution of 1960s introduced herbicides, pesticides, and advanced agricultural technologies to third world countries-rescuing hundreds of millions of people from malnutrition and starvation and transforming low-yield, labor-intensive farming into the high-tech, immensely productive industry it is today. Despite these stunning gains, critics of chemical farming remain vocal. Recently, the European Union passed a ban on twenty-two chemicals-about 15 percent of the EU pesticides market-to begin in 2011. In Crop Chemophobia, Jon Entine and his coauthors examine the "precautionary principle" that underlies the EU's decision and explore the ban's potential consequences-including environmental degradation, decreased food safety, impaired disease-control efforts, and a hungrier world.

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Richard Rogerson

The Impact of Labor Taxes on Labor Supply

$47.50

As the Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire in 2010, ambitious health care legislation is moving through Congress, and entitlement programs are growing at unsustainable rates, U.S. policymakers face important questions about the optimal size and scope of federal spending. The federal government finances its spending through labor taxes, including taxes on income, payroll, and consumption-taxes that generate significant disincentives for employment. In Taxes, Transfers, and Labor Supply: An International Perspective, Richard Rogerson contends that the unintended consequences of increased labor taxes would be too large for policymakers to ignore. Rogerson compares fifty years of time series data from the United States and fourteen other OECD countries. He finds that a 10 percentage point increase in the tax rate on labor leads to a 10 to 15 percent decrease in hours of work. Even a 5 percent decrease in hours worked would mean a decline in labor market productivity equating to a serious recession. But, whereas recessions are temporary, changes in government spending patterns have permanent repercussions. Although government spending provides citizens with many important benefits, these benefits must be weighed against the disincentivizing effects of increased labor taxes. Policymakers who fail to account for this decrease in labor productivity risk expanding government programs beyond the economy's ability to support them.

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John C. Fortier

After the People Vote, Fourth Edition

$23.30

Now in its fourth edition, After the People Vote remains an indispensable concise guide to help students and all citizens understand this critical and controversial American political institution. The mechanisms that lead to the final selection of a president are complex. Some procedures are sketched out in the original Constitution and its amendments, and others in federal law, congressional rules and procedures, state laws, and political party rules. This new, expanded edition of After the People Vote—featuring new sections on public opinion on the Electoral College and proposals for amending the Electoral College system—explains how our system of electing a president works, especially the processes that kick in after the November general election date.

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Andrew P. Morriss

Offshore Financial Centers and Regulatory Competition

$70.00

Offshore financial centers (OFCs) have a troubled reputation for enabling tax evasion, money laundering, autocratic looting, and even the financing of terrorism-but they play an essential role in the world economy. Fears of criminal activity have prompted many onshore governments to restrict offshore competition, but over-regulating OFC activity presents a serious risk of destabilizing the global financial system. In Offshore Financial Centers and Regulatory Competition, a group of leading international law and finance experts argues that offshore jurisdictions have become key players in corporate finance and captive insurance markets. OFCs offer legal protections for financial privacy and provide regulatory competition to onshore jurisdictions, forcing national governments to evaluate and reform their own tax and regulatory policies. Offshore centers also help to streamline foreign direct investment and create growth opportunities for countries with weak financial systems by providing access to global capi

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Andrew G. Biggs

The Real Retirement Crisis

$28.00

Americans, and the elected officials who represent them, are worried about retirement. Majorities of Americans tell pollsters they fear a "retirement crisis" of inadequate savings and incomes in old age. Some argue that our system of 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts layered on top of a base income from Social Security is an abject failure. Only a complete reboot that expands Social Security and abandons 401(k)s can avert the retirement crisis. But what if the entire narrative is wrong?

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Dr. Alan D. Viard

The Real Tax Burden

$8.99

Endowed with the authority to enforce justice, government is a necessary prerequisite to human flourishing. Citizens rightfully bear the responsibility to contribute to the existence of just government through the rendering of taxes. Because tax policy is also a reflection of values, citizens in a democratic society should be concerned with how taxes are collected and spent. In Real Tax Burden: More than Dollars and Cents, Alan Viard and Alex Brill explain everything you need to know to understand taxes in America today. The authors describe who pays what and why, the implications of the current system, and provide a vision for reform that is simple, effective, and consistent with our values.

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Robert Doar

A Safety Net That Works

$44.00

This is an edited volume reviewing the major means-tested social programs in the United States. Each author addresses a major program or area, reviewing each area’s successes and recommending how to address shortcomings through policy change. In general, our means-tested programs do many things well, but some adjustments to each could make the system much more effective. This book provides policymakers with a broad overview of the issues at hand in each program and how to address them. Contributions by Douglas J. Besharov, Richard V. Burkhauser, Douglass M. Call, James C. Capretta, Kevin C. Corinth, Maura Corrigan, Mary C. Daly, Robert Doar, Ron Haskins, Bruce D. Meyer, Edgar O. Olsen, Angela Rachidi, Katharine B. Stevens, and Russell Sykes.

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Walter Berns

Lincoln at Two Hundred

$16.00

We say that a man can be known by the company he keeps. So I say that a nation, a people, can be known and be judged by its heroes, by whom it honors above all others." Abraham Lincoln was the greatest of our presidents. He saved the Union, and because he saved the Union, he was able to free the slaves. But he did more than this. Without him, we might have had no reason to celebrate the bicentennial first of the Declaration of Independence and then of the Constitution. It is therefore altogether fitting that we mark the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth. Part of the Bradley Lecture Series. Lincoln at Two Hundred was presented on February 9, 2009, as part of the American Enterprise Institute's Bradley Lecture Series, which aims to enrich debate in the Washington policy community through exploration of the philosophical and historical underpinnings of current controversies.

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Gary Schmitt

McCulloch v. Maryland at 200

$35.00

In recognition of the 200th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in McCulloch v. Maryland, AEI’s Program on American Citizenship commissioned five distinguished scholars to author essays keyed to that decision. The program hosted a panel discussion with the authors to present their initial drafts in February 2019. The chapters of this edited volume are the finalized versions of those essays.

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Lawrence M. Mead

Expanding Work Programs for Poor Men

$60.50

Welfare reform, which required that poor mothers work in return for assistance, was a watershed in the struggle against poverty for American families. As work levels rose dramatically among low-income women, the welfare rolls were cut in half and many families rose out of poverty. But men's employment is also crucial to uplifting families, and programs designed to encourage work among poor men are often poorly funded and little understood by policymakers. Expanding Work Programs for Poor Men makes the case that poor fathers, like poor mothers, need 'both help and hassle.' That is, poor men need more help from the government, but they must also be expected-and required-to help themselves. Drawing on welfare reform as a successful precedent, Lawrence M. Mead explores the psychology of male nonwork and evaluates the successes and failures of existing government programs for poor men, including child support and conditions of parole. These programs have succeeded in increasing work levels among poor men by requi

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Kori Schake

Defending Taiwan

$9.99

From the American Enterprise Institute’s leading Foreign and Defense Policy scholars, Defending Taiwan offers a road map for US policy to deter and defend against Chinese aggression toward Taiwan. The top experts explain why the US should care about Taiwan’s sovereignty. They also examine the consequences of not defending the principles that the international order—which has made us safe and prosperous—relies on and what it would take to successfully protect Taiwan and the international order more broadly from Chinese predation. The chapters not only identify the major debates about protecting Taiwan’s sovereignty but also provide the trenchant analysis and data to inform American and allied national security strategies. US policy belongs on the side of people seeking freedom. This book is an essential resource for shaping such policy.

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Dr. R. Richard Geddes

The Road to Renewal

$70.00

Despite record levels of government spending, America's transportation system is plagued by traffic congestion, decaying infrastructure, and politicization of transportation funding-leading to calamities such as the 2007 collapse an interstate highway bridge over the Mississippi River and political fiascos like Alaska's infamous "Bridge to Nowhere." In The Road to Renewal, R. Richard Geddes surveys the current state of U.S. ground transportation and finds that, like the roads themselves, transportation policy is in desperate need of repair. A shift toward increased use of public-private partnerships (PPPs)-contractual agreements that allow private participation in the design, construction, operation, and delivery of transportation facilities-could significantly improve the quality of U.S. roadways.

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Lawrence M. Mead

From Prophecy to Charity

$8.99

Helping the poor is a question central to American life. Partially driven by America's Judeo-Christian heritage, Americans believe we possess enough wealth to provide some minimum basic standard of living for all and genuinely desire to help the least among us. We are the most generous nation on earth, spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually through private giving, corporate philanthropy, government aid, and other forms of charity. And yet, despite these efforts, international and domestic poverty persist. In From Prophecy to Charity: How to Help the Poor, Lawrence M. Mead critiques the philosophical presuppositions of past and current endeavors to alleviate poverty and provides a framework to guide future efforts based on what has been proven to actually help those in need: charity rooted in love.

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Dr. Michael Rubin

Seven Pillars

$37.00

For decades, US foreign policy in the Middle East has been on autopilot: Seek Arab-Israeli peace, fight terrorism, and urge regimes to respect human rights. Every US administration puts its own spin on these initiatives, but none has successfully resolved the region’s fundamental problems. In Seven Pillars: What Really Causes Instability in the Middle East? a bipartisan group of leading experts representing several academic and policy disciplines unravel the core causes of instability in the Middle East and North Africa. Why have some countries been immune to the Arab Spring? Which governments enjoy the most legitimacy and why? With more than half the region under 30 years of age, why does education and innovation lag? How do resource economies, crony capitalism, and inequality drive conflict? Are ethnic and sectarian fault lines the key factor, or are these more products of political and economic instability? And what are the wellsprings of extremism that threaten not only the United States but, more profoundly, the people of the region?

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Alex J. Pollock

Boom and Bust

$8.99

While the recent economic crisis was a painful period for many Americans, the panic surrounding the downturn was fueled by an incomplete understanding of economic history. Economic hysteria made for riveting journalism and effective political theater, but the politicians and members of the media who declared that America was in the midst of the greatest financial calamity since the Great Depression were as wrong and misguided as the expansionists of the Roosevelt era. In reality the cyclical nature of market economies is as old as the markets themselves. In a free market system, financial downturns inevitably accompany economic prosperity-but the overall trend is upward progress in living standards and national wealth. While it is helpful to understand what caused the recent crisis, the more important questions to consider are 'What makes the 'boom and bust' cycle so predictable?' and 'What are the ethical responsibilities of the citizens of a free market economy?' In Boom and Bust: Financial Cycles and Human Prosperity, Alex J. Pollock argues that while economic downturns can be frightening and difficult, people living in free market economies enjoy greater health, better access to basic necessities, better education, work less arduous jobs, and have more choices and wider horizons than people at any other point in history. This wonderful reality would not exist in the absence of financial cycles. This book explains why.

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Jonathan H. Adler

Rebuilding the Ark

$70.00

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) may be the most powerful environmental law in the United States. Enacted in 1973, the ESA prohibits any actions that may cause harm to endangered plants and animals or the ecosystems upon which they depend. But although more than 1,200 species are protected under the Act, most remain in peril. The ESA may have saved some species from the brink of extinction, but there is little evidence it is working as intended to recover endangered and threatened species. In some cases, the Act's extensive regulatory requirements may actually discourage conservation efforts. In Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform, Jonathan H. Adler leads a group of environmental law experts in evaluating the ESA's successes and failures and exploring multiple avenues for reform. The authors examine methods for incentivizing conservation on private land and water, for revising and standardizing the ESA's regulatory framework, and for increasing transparency, accountability.

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Dr. Michael R. Strain

Economic Freedom and Human Flourishing

$78.00

Is economic liberty necessary for individuals to lead truly flourishing lives? Whether your immediate answer is yes or no, this question is deceptively simple. What do we mean by liberty? What constitutes the flourishing life? How are these related? How is economic liberty related to other goods that affect human flourishing? To answer these questions—and more—this volume brings to bear some of history’s greatest thinkers, interpreted by some of today’s leading scholars of their thought. How might Aristotle have understood the relationship between economic liberty and human flourishing? Hobbes and Locke, Mill, Rousseau, Burke, Adam Smith, Kant, de Tocqueville, and Marx? So much of the policy and political debates around issues of economic liberty are often cast in somewhat narrow terms. What is the precise magnitude of this elasticity? Is a certain policy popular among key constituencies? Of course, economic and political analysis have a vital role to play in shaping and understanding public policy. But it is

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Edwin J. Delattre

Character & Cops, 6th Edition

$49.00

Since the first edition was published in 1989, Character and Cops has been considered the bible of police ethics training. The book is a comprehensive guide to the ethical challenges faced daily by police officers, especially in times of heightened security. The updated sixth edition features a new foreword by David Bores, a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States military police, and a new chapter titled 'From War Veterans to Peace Officers,' which explores policies for incorporating soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan into the domestic police force.

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Leon Aron

Riding the Tiger

$19.99

In Riding the Tiger, Leon Aron, an acclaimed Russian studies scholar and a Moscow native who was sanctioned by President Vladimir Putin’s regime, chronicles the transformation of Russian politics and society under Putin. Through hundreds of Russian-language sources, Dr. Aron shows how Putin uses militarist propaganda and sanitized revisionist images of World War II, Stalin, and the Soviet Union to forge a nationalist and loyal core of his regime’s support. And the “new Russia” suddenly looks a lot like the old USSR.Dr. Aron’s bold, expert analysis of Russian political culture under Putin helps us better understand Russia’s revanchist tendencies, its invasion of Ukraine, and the perilous road ahead.

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Yuval Levin

Capitalism and the American Revolution

$18.00

The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of American independence, yet the founding is controversial now in ways it has not been in decades. In honor of this significant anniversary, the American Enterprise Institute offers a major intellectual and educational project to reintroduce Americans to the unique value of their national inheritance. In the second volume of this series, leading historians, political scientists, and economists analyze the role that the market economy played in the creation of the United States. Alongside the American Declaration of Independence, 1776 marked the publication of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. This work shaped the political and economic thought of many leaders in the American Revolution, including those who would go on to join rival political parties, such as Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. At the same time, the founders evinced concerns over what economic inequality might mean for political freedom in the fledgling republic. Understanding how the founding generation viewed the promises and perils of capitalism in securing the future of the United States can shed light on modern debates over capitalism’s role in American society.

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Elisabeth Braw

The Defender's Dilemma

$43.00

National security threats facing the West are fundamentally changing. Turning away from the military as an omnibus tool of aggression, hostile governments are instead frequently using tools—including subversive economics, coercion of foreign companies, gradual border violations, cyberattacks, disinformation, and arbitrary detention of foreign citizens—that are often difficult for targeted countries to immediately identify, let alone tackle. Nonmilitary aggression is easy, inexpensive, and alarmingly effective. Businesses — American and foreign — have already suffered significant financial losses because of gray-zone attacks. In The Defender’s Dilemma, international security expert Elisabeth Braw offers the first sustained analysis of how these tactics in the gray zone between war and peace dangerously weaken liberal democracies, which are open societies by definition and intimately connected to the rest of the world through globalization. She discusses the breadth of gray-zone aggression and presents str

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Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt

Policy and Economic Performance in Divided Korea During the Cold War Era

$32.00

The Korean peninsula during the Cold War provided a cruel but historically unparalleled real-world “experiment” in the relationship between polity and material advance: an ethnically and culturally homogenous nation was, in 1945, suddenly divided by an arbitrary boundary line and then subjected to two radically different and adversarial political economies for successive decades on end. Assessing the competition between the North and South Korean economies from partition to the end of the Soviet era, Nicholas Eberstadt argues that the storyline is not quite as simple as the now-prevailing narrative suggests (that centrally-planned economies are doomed to fail against market-oriented alternatives). Rather, he suggests, the race for material progress was just that: a race, the results of which were far from preordained at the outset. In Policy and Economic Performance in Divided Korea during the Cold War Era: 1945–91, Eberstadt presents an impressive compilation of hard-to-find comparative data on economic performance for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea) over two critical generations. By a number of indicators, Eberstadt argues, Kim Il Sung's North Korea actually outperformed South Korea for much of this period—not only in the years immediately following partition, but perhaps also into the 1970s. To explain these surprising results, Eberstadt details the impact of government policies on the course of growth of both economies and offers some unorthodox observations about material performance under these two contending polities. He finds that prevailing economic development theory on such issues as planned-versus- market economies, military burden, and the relationship between material advance and poverty, may require reexamination in light of the experience of the two Koreas between partition and the end of the Cold War.

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Dr. Gary E. Marchant

Thwarting Consumer Choice

$41.00

Are consumers entitled to full disclosure about what is in their food? Many countries, including key U.S. trading partners in Europe and Asia, have adopted mandatory labeling laws for genetically modified crops such as corn and soybeans. Policymakers in the United States are under pressure from activist groups to adopt similar laws, and some public opinion polls suggest that 90 percent of Americans support mandatory GM labeling. But does GM labeling really protect consumers? In Thwarting Consumer Choice, Gary E. Marchant, Guy A. Cardineau, and Thomas P. Redick contend that mandatory GM labeling laws actually harm consumers by pushing genetically modified foods off the market. Although proponents of mandatory labeling often question the safety of genetically modified foods, the National Academy of Sciences and other leading research institutions agree that 'GM foods present no unique risks, or greater risks than non-GM foods.' Genetically modified foods are not only safe, but abundant and inexpensive. Because they require less use of pesticides and fewer acres of land than conventional crops, they do not overtax the environment. Future innovations could produce GM foods with increased vitamin levels and reduced fat content. Despite these vast benefits, the GM food industry is threatened by labeling requirements that are burdensome, expensive, and stigmatizing. Mandatory labeling would deter investment in this burgeoning biotechnology and deprive the public of important innovations. Ultimately, the authors conclude, GM labeling laws are antithetical to the notion of consumer choice.

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Dr. Arthur C. Brooks

Wealth and Justice

$8.99

Popular opinion would have us believe that America's free market system is driven by greed and materialism, resulting in gross inequalities of wealth, destruction of the environment, and other social ills. Even proponents of capitalism often refer to the free market as simply a 'lesser evil' whose faults are preferable to those of social democracy or communism. But what if the conventional understanding of capitalism as corrupt and unprincipled is wrong? What if the free market economy actually reinforces Christian values? In Wealth and Justice: The Morality of Democratic Capitalism, Arthur C. Brooks and Peter Wehner explore how America's system of democratic capitalism both depends upon and cultivates an intricate social web of families, churches, and communities. Far from oppressing and depriving individuals, the free market system uniquely enables Americans to exercise vocation and experience the dignity of self-sufficiency, all while contributing to the common good. The fruits of this system include the alleviation of poverty, better health, and greater access to education than at any other time in human history-but also a more significant prosperity: the flourishing of the human soul.

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Orazio P. Attanasio

Inequality in Living Standards Since 1980

$47.50

Studies of wage and income inequality among U.S. citizens over the past thirty years have engendered the common wisdom that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. But is it really that simple? In this meticulous economic study, Orazio P. Attanasio, Erich Battistin, and Mario Padula contend that the evolution of income and wage inequalities offers only a partial picture of changes in prosperity in recent decades. Studying changes in the distribution of consumption and expenditure helps to amplify this picture_income, after all, is valued in large part because it allows consumption_and yields a more complete understanding of economic well-being in America.