The discovery of freedom;: Man's struggle against authority (The Right wing individualist tradition in America) [Paperback]

Rose Wilder Lane (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Scientific American

"There's a book you should read," Ruth Dazey, my secretary, said one day.

Preoccupied, I nodded. Pencil and pad at hand I said, "Title and author, please."

"Discovery of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane."

I scribbled the information. "Fine. Thanks."

It took awhile to locate a copy. Discovery of Freedom wasn't available in book stores, but a worn volume was finally found in a used book emporium and the purchase was made. I took the book home with me and began to read it that very evening.

I was captivated, enthralled, caught up in the grandeur of the concepts which marched one after another across the pages.

Here is an epic depicting the story of humanity. It provided a backdrop and spotlighted performances by its stars. It is philosophy and history at the same time. But it is a record of human history, not a story of generals or politicians, preening and strutting before the masses. It is about the people who build the bridges, cut down the trees, plant the crops, sail the seas, who mine and manufacture, who have children and who suffer and survive and somehow manage to make life possible and even pleasant.

It is a story which contains wry humor, satire, and much wisdom. And there is a thread of wisdom which can shake a person to the roots. I couldn't put the book down. I absorbed everything in it. Or, perhaps more accurately, the book absorbed me. It is one of the great books of the twentieth century. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

The impact of Discovery creeps up on you. It begins with sentiments that seem simple and even self-evident. But as you proceed, you find yourself simply understanding so much about the world we live in that you should have known, but didn't. That is the power of the novelist at work: Lane makes you see the truth, and comprehend it, too.--Roy A. Childs, Jr. in Laissez Faire Review -- Roy A. Childs, Jr. in Laissez Faire Review

[This is] a work that is so powerful it may well have launched the modern freedom movement. Originally published in 1943, Discovery had the impact of a lightening bolt, setting intellectual fires that burn brighter than ever among the modern intellectuals who are leading the growing assault on government control of our lives.

This is a book of timeless importance. It must be read by anyone who is seriously interested in the heritage of liberty--not just in America, but the world over. And reading it is a joy. Lane, who is said to have written the book 'at white heat,' was at once a brilliant thinker and a gifted storyteller.

This book is a withering attack on statism, nationalism, and what Nobel Laureate F. A. Hayek calls the 'fatal conceit' of national economic planning. It is an intellectual tour de force that stood up to the collectivist paradigm of its time and pointed the way to rediscovering the principles of the American Revolution--a true revolution unlike those of the Old World that 'are revolutions only in the sense that a wheel's turning is a revolution.' Her exciting description of the revolutionary period (you can tell she wishes she'd been there to lend a hand to Paine, Mason, Jefferson and the gang) is the best of a brilliant book.

Rose Wilder Lane was a truly remarkable woman. Like Jefferson, she attacked life, living it to the fullest, as adventurer, journalist, world traveller, iconoclast, and just prior to her death, war corespondent in Vietnam. Not surprisingly, the clear-eyed determination and supercharged energy she brings to attacking the enemies of liberty in Discovery is unique among prominent proliberty writers. -- Ed Crane, president, Cato Institute --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 262 pages
• Publisher: Arno Press (1972)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0405004257
• ISBN-13: 978-0405004254
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,101,518 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The slow march of Freedom, April 4, 2009

By 

Pieter "Toypom" (Johannesburg) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Discovery of Freedom (Paperback)

This philosophical history of freedom is not flawless but provides extraordinary insights as it traces the stages in the discovery of individual liberty from the earliest times. The work reveals salient discernment, uncovers forgotten history and shows unintended prescience. Explaining how the human mind works with standards of value, Lane identifies three crucial factors: the nature of human energy, the recognition of the human race as one & the quest for the ideal method for individuals to combine their energies.

Part One (The Old World) contains discussions of antiquity when life was viewed as cyclical and authority was absolute; Plato's dictatorship of the intellectuals & Spengler's theory of the rise & fall of civilizations; Communism, including the early collectivist experiments in the American colonies, and planned economies. The author points out that many revolutions just represent the turning of a wheel around a motionless center; a new gang replaces the old but individual freedom never materializes. Enormous waste occurs when authority is enforced in the production & distribution of material goods.

Part Two (The Old World) explores the steps that led to a free society in the USA. First there was Abraham who embraced the concept that God created human beings as free agents. Later there was Moses, the Ten Commandments and Israel under the Judges which was a libertarian society. Lane emphasizes the significance of Samuel's warning to the Israelites when they demanded a king. Her observations on antisemitism ring true and are confirmed by history: the Old World is alarmed at Israel and the hatred derives from the fear of freedom. It is always the tyrant that leads the attack on the Jewish people who have faithfully preserved their scriptures that proclaim the individual to be free.

Lane considers the second attempt to be the Islamic expansion which in its tolerant, golden age made lasting contributions in the spread & development of e.g. astronomy, mathematics and medicine. Unfortunately she quotes only a small, nice sentence from this religion's foundational document while ignoring Dhimmitude and the eventual decline and regression of this civilization. Britain became the next setting where freedom unfolded, in a type of benevolent feudal system. The Magna Carta was a charter of liberties within an entrenched social order. This however, was a grant of liberty, not the recognition of individual liberty. Despite not recognizing freedom as the inherent state of the human being, the British system did promote the concept of human rights for many centuries.

America represents the third attempt, the one that succeeded. Lane explores early American history and the radical new concept of individual freedom that developed amongst the colonists. She shows that the American Revolution had no single leader but erupted spontaneously amongst many. Self-sufficiency had undermined the Old World concept of authority. The colonists were traders who learnt about human nature, creation, wars, adventures, intrigues and family life from the Bible. They defied British laws restricting trade, smuggled to their hearts' content and chose to fight rather than conform & submit. Ten years before Lexington, American rebellion was in full swing. Finally, creativity won the battle against control.

For the first time, the individual was seen as the shaper of life & society. There was no conflict between religion & science as opposed to Europe where the French Enlightenment made a god of science. The American view as articulated by Thomas Paine considered the pursuit of science as the divine study of the works of God in creation. From the beginning, there was a profound difference between the Enlightenment of the Anglosphere and that of Continental Europe. Rose Wilder Lane cherished the mind that knows the individual is free as the most valuable thing in the world.

This section includes chapters on property rights, the Constitution, the right to vote, democracy, republicanism and the industrial revolution that gave birth to innumerable inventions and unimaginable wealth. The free use of energy is the quickest way to a better life, but minds take longer to change than actions. The revolutions of the 19th & 20th centuries in South America & Europe are covered in interesting detail. Lane believed the counter-revolution came from Germany because that country had never experienced Roman Law nor the proper application of the feudal concept of human rights. Anti-modernist ideologies like Fascism, Communism & Socialism all derive from Marx. Napoleon served as model for Bismarck and this strongman concept eventually inflicted Hitler, Mussolini & Stalin on the world. Lane could not have known that it would spread to much of Africa, the Islamic World & large parts of Asia, leaving mass murder & misery in its wake.

In discussing Germany, she observes that the USA borrowed its idea of compulsory state education. She laments the fact that free and private education in America was abandoned. This is where she was perhaps unintentionally prophetic. The German model resulted in the sorry state of US education today, in both its failure to educate and the fact that academia - the humanities in particular - has become a lair of collectivist utopian thinking with a disastrous effect on society. Today its toxic infusions into the culture include irrational & evil philosophies like postmodernism & multiculturalism. Hatched in the universities, they are spread by the mass media.

Lane's optimistic vision of the future is of a living network linking all human beings in a dynamic interplay of free creative energies. In 2009 the prospects may not look rosy, but the her explanation remains convincing. Freedom being the human being's natural state, once the concept has spread around the globe it can never be eradicated. The enemies of liberty fight back with The deception but the only way they can win is by obliterating knowledge. The forces of sinisterism have caused much bloodshed in their struggle against freedom and will do so again. Ultimately, however, freedom will triumph around the globe. Human energy is variable & creative and the spark of individual liberty can never be extinguished.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Concise, clear, educational, thorough, and interesting!, October 2, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Discovery of Freedom: Man's Struggle Against Authority (Paperback)

This is not only the clearest, most concise book of the worth, and means of achieving, individual freedom, but it reads like a well written novel. Insights from her travels; whether having dinner with the King of Albania, or visiting the centuries old cave dwellings in the same country or dealing with the mindless red tape in Paris, Ms Lane sifts through the socialist failures past and present in a thorough, yet entertaining fashion. Anyone with even a passing interest in the philosophy of freedom will benefit from this book. And libertarian book addicts will also learn something from the Timeliness of this 50 year old book, re-published this year.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sparkling perspective on the nature of our species, July 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Discovery of Freedom: Man's Struggle Against Authority (Paperback)

"Here lies a planet, whirling in sunlit space..." From the opening words throughout the book to the concluding "...set the whole world free" Lane grabs you by the cerebellum and doesn't let go.

(By the way, this book is not by Hanz Sennholz, it's by Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of Laura Engalls Wilder.)

She admitted later that she'd introduced technical errors having written it "at white heat", yet the principles are as sound and unimpeachable as ever you'll read. If you've ever wondered about the nature of liberty and the history of freedom--from Jesus through Mohammed to America--read this book!