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My GMU Econ colleague Dan Klein sent me the following e-mail, which I share with you (with Dan’s kind permission):
I’ve finished reading Daniel Hannan’s Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World [2]. I think that it is a very valuable book, and in many ways; it really should be read and discussed.
Like Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism [3] it is a book that I do not always agree with, but which teaches a lot and is quite persuasive in many of its central messages. As wide-frame as Goldberg’s book is, Hannan’s is much much wider. I learned a great deal more from Hannan’s book.
Here [4] is the awesome 3-min 2009 video of Hannan to Gordon Brown.
Here [5] is Hannan’s recent 30-min presentation of the book at Heritage (followed by some Q & A).
Here [6] is an informative WSJ review of the book.
Here [7] is a 10-min interview at the Institute of Economic Affairs (London).
Hannan is clearly a strong proponent of individual liberty and free markets. But some libertarians will object to Hannan. My sense is that Hannan is not really very militaristic (here [8] is a blog post where he says Britain probably should have stayed out of the First World War); he is for at least moderate liberalization of drugs. In the Heritage talk he flatly tells the audience to favor immigration.