It can't possibly be an easy job to condense the life of one of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers into less than four hundred pages. Indeed, author Justin Raimondo notes in his introduction that he hopes only to offer "what is little more than an extended biographical sketch, to capture the essential Rothbard, not only his ideas but also his personality and some sense of his historical significance."
Raimondo is too modest.
I'll keep this brief since other reviews of this book are available online (and if you write to me I'll tell you where to find them). What Raimondo actually provides in this volume is a cradle-to-grave overview of Rothbard's entire life and career, together with insightful summaries of carefully selected portions of Rothbard's thought. No doubt there is a great deal that Raimondo must omit or curtail. Nevertheless he provides considerably more than a "sketch."
Not that Raimondo's skills as a sketch artist are negligible. But the word "sketch" is better applied to his accounts of the various _other_ persons who populate his account -- from Rothbard's father David to Mises Institute founder Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. His accounts of these others are masterful sketches. But he brings Rothbard himself to life in a well-realized portrait of this giant of libertarianism.
Raimondo provides more: a defense and a vindication. Rothbard was the subject of scurrilous charges from several quarters throughout much of his career and even after his death, including (at the time of this writing) some misrepresentations from the "Objectivist" camp regarding the period of Rothbard's involvement with the Randian inner circle. Raimondo's handling of this topic is typical of his overall approach: he delves into Rothbard's personal correspondence and reveals, deftly and vigorously, what was actually going on -- not at all flatteringly to Rand and the founders of her cult.
In fact Raimondo really ought to be better known than he is as a critic of the "Objectivist" movement in general and of Rand in particular. Not surprisingly, Rothbard's encounter with Rand occupies some twenty-five pages of the present work, and Raimondo's incisive discussion is as penetrating and devastating as his earlier destructive criticism of Rand in _Reclaiming the American Right_. I shall with difficulty resist the temptation to spoil some of Raimondo's surprises; but for these twenty-five pages alone this book should be of interest to anyone even remotely interested in the "Objectivist" movement.
William F. Buckley does not come off well either; nor do the numerous lesser critics who buzzed about Rothbard like gnats. And of course there are fine positive accounts of Rothbard's wife JoAnn ("Joey, the indispensible framework"), his various longtime friends and associates, the great Ludwig von Mises, and the numerous other persons whose paths intersected Rothbard's for good or ill.
Amazingly, Raimondo manages to integrate all of this with an exposition of Rothbard's key economic and political insights. Obviously a good deal has had to be left out, or the book would have become unmanageably long. Nevertheless all of Rothbard's central themes are here, and all of his major works are given at least capsule summaries in their proper biographical context. This is no small feat -- especially since standard economic textbooks have trouble getting straight the Rothbardian views that Raimondo summarizes with apparent ease.
All in all, then, an astonishingly fine book that will be of interest both to those who already know who Rothbard was, and to those who have never heard of him before. "If this modest volume does its part," Raimondo writes in his introduction, "to make [Rothbard's] thought more accessible and readily available to a wider audience, it will have accomplished its purpose."
To that purpose it is admirably suited. Read it at once, and share it with everyone you know. And congratulations to Raimondo for a daunting task surpassingly well done.
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Top reviews from other countries
- Shane SladeReviewed in the United Kingdom on September 8, 2009
No Enemy of Liberty.
- Game CatReviewed in the United Kingdom on July 27, 2013
Unfortunately a print shop job.
