John M. Zane (1863–1937) was a distinguished attorney.

Charles J. Reid, Jr. is Professor at the School of Law, University of Saint Thomas.

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M. J. C. Vile is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Kent at Canterbury and author of The Structure of American Federalism.

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In his longest essay, “The European Witch-craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Trevor-Roper points out that “in England the most active phase of witch-hunting coincided with times of Puritan pressure—the reign of Queen Elizabeth and the period of the civil wars—and some very fanciful theories have been built on this coincidence. But . . . the persecution of witches in England was trivial compared with the experience of the Continent and of Scotland. Therefore . . . [one must examine] the craze as a whole, throughout Europe, and [seek] to relate its rise, frequency, and decline to the general intellectual and social movements of the time.”

Because Trevor-Roper believes that “the English Revolution of the seventeenth century cannot be isolated from a general crisis in Europe,” he devotes the longest of his essays to the European Witch-craze. Events in England—and the intellectual currents from which they emerged and to which they gave impetus—cannot be understood apart from events and intellectual currents on the Continent.

Trevor-Roper acknowledges that the belief in witches, and the persecution of people believed to be witches, may be, to some at least, “a disgusting subject, below the dignity of history.” However, he goes on, “[I]t is also a historical fact, of European significance, and its rise precisely in the years of the Renaissance and Reformation is a problem which must be faced by anyone who is tempted to overemphasize the ‘modernity’ of that period.”

Hugh Trevor-Roper, Lord Dacre (1914–2003) was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford.

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Taine condemns the radicals of the French Revolution, unhesitatingly contradicting the rosy, Rousseauesque view of the Revolution.Taine approached the Revolution in the same way that a medical doctor approaches a disease. Indeed, he described his work not so much as a history as a “pathology” of the Revolution. His method constitutes his principal contribution to study of the subject. This method began with an examination, not of the French, but of the English. As Professor Mona Ozouf observes, Taine “maintained [that] the history of the Revolution depended on the definition of the French spirit.” He had, in an earlier account of English literature, defined “a unique explanatory principle” for investigation of the contrasting societies of the French and the English. This principle among the English, he reported, is “the sense of liberty,” or what he described as the English conviction that “man, having conceived alone in his conscience and before God the rules of his conduct, is above all a free, moral person.” In contrast to the English ability to conserve and even to expand liberty through gradual adaptation to changing circumstances, Taine identified a “French spirit” that became, Ozouf emphasizes, “his central explanation of the French revolutionary phenomenon.” This phenomenon explained, Taine argued, why France “had demolished its national community well before the Revolution”—thus making the Revolution not only inevitable, but also inevitably terrible.

Hippolyte Taine (1828–1893) was a historian and philosopher who was one of the primary figures in French Positivism.

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This book provides a scholarly review and judicious assessments of the experience and theory that bear on the issues of free banking and central banking. Its wide-ranging discussion identifies both the fallacies in the arguments for central banks and the influential fallacies in the arguments against free banking. Vera Smith’s work should play a prominent role in any reappraisal of our monetary institutions.

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The post The Making of Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” appeared first on Liberty Fund.

Ellis Sandoz is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Eric Voegelin Institute at Louisiana State University.

The post The Roots of Liberty appeared first on Liberty Fund.

Heinrich A. Rommen (1897–1967) taught in Germany and England before concluding his distinguished scholarly career at Georgetown University.

Russell Hittinger is William K. Warren Professor of Catholic Studies and Research Professor of Law at the University of Tulsa.

The post The Natural Law appeared first on Liberty Fund.

Caroline Robbins (1903–1999) taught history at Bryn Mawr College from 1929 to 1971 and was chairman of the department from 1957 to 1969.

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Like the course, The Evolution of Civilizations is a comprehensive and perceptive look at the factors behind the rise and fall of civilizations. Quigley examines the application of scientific method to the social sciences, then establishes his historical hypotheses. He poses a division of culture into six levels from the abstract to the more concrete. He then tests those hypotheses by a detailed analysis of five major civilizations: the Mesopotamian, the Canaanite, the Minoan, the classical, and the Western.

Quigley defines a civilization as “a producing society with an instrument of expansion.” A civilization’s decline is not inevitable but occurs when its instrument of expansion is transformed into an institution—that is, when social arrangements that meet real social needs are transformed into social institutions serving their own purposes regardless of real social needs.

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