''Conceived in Liberty'' is a 5-volume narrative by

Murray Rothbard Murray Newton Rothbard (; March 2, 1926 – January 7, 1995) was an American economist of the Austrian School, economic historian, political theorist, and activist. Rothbard was a central figure in the 20th-century American libertarian m ...

on the history of the United States from the pre-colonial period through the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

Summary

In this work of nearly 1700 pages, Rothbard states that the

history of the United States The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of Settlement of the Americas, the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Native American cultures in the United States, Numerous indigenous cultures formed ...

has been motivated by people's pursuit of

liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...

, which he believes is constantly being threatened by political power. Rothbard contrasts his views with what he claims are thinkers on the right who see the American Revolution as a "conservative" event, and other thinkers on the left who view it as some sort of proto-socialist uprising. Instead, Rothbard states that he views this period as a time of

libertarian Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...

radicalism. Rothbard stated that American Revolutionaries fell into two camps: The first camp was those who wanted to demolish the British Empire's state apparatus in the colonies. The other camp wanted to keep the empire, but have Americans run it. (The state apparatus could be defined as the centralized institution of the crown such as the army, taxation, church establishment, commercial regulations and trade barriers, control of land development, banking, government debt, etc.) The first camp, Rothbard opined was the more libertarian, anti-federalist camp associated with Jefferson and Jackson. The second camp was the more federalist centralizing camp, associated with Hamilton and later the Whigs. They felt that in the right hands, the power of the centralized state could serve the public interest, an interest which neatly coincided with their interests. The conflict between these two factions is another part of understanding the revolution, its outcome, and its conservative and radical aspects.

Creation

Rothbard said in a 1990 interview: "After the Volker Fund collapsed, I got a grant from the Lilly Endowment to do a history of the U.S., which I worked on from 1962–66. The original idea was to take the regular facts and put a libertarian assessment on everything. But once I started to work on it, I found many facts that had been left out, like tax rebellions. So it got longer and longer. It turned into the five-volume ''Conceived in Liberty'', covering the Colonial period to the Constitution. I don't like to completely chart out my research in advance. I go step by step and it always seems to get longer than anticipated. After Arlington House published volume four, they went out of business. Volume five, on the Constitution, was written in longhand and no one can read my handwriting." According to

Lew Rockwell Llewellyn Harrison Rockwell Jr. (born July 1, 1944) is an American author, editor, and political consultant. A libertarian and a self-professed anarcho-capitalist, he founded and is the chairman of the Mises Institute, a non-profit dedicated t ...

, "indeed, Murray wrote the fifth volume, the most revisionist of all. He did it in longhand on legal yellow pads, and used a dictating machine a friend had given him. His wife Joey would use the recording to type the manuscript." Rockwell says of it that "The fifth volume completes Murray’s great work, lost for decades, yet as relevant as the day he finished it."

"Lost" fifth volume

In the summer of 2013 Patrick Newman initially realized this was probably a complete work rather than disjointed notes as Mises Fellow. The tapes had been lost but the first sixty pages typed from them were available as were the scrawling, note and marginalia-filled, pages of longhand. Academic Vice-President of the Mises Institute Joseph Salerno approached him to possibly translate Rothbard's longhand notes and edit the fifth volume. After a week of attempting to read the longhand and using the helpful amounts of references included in the notes to interpret Rothbard's handwriting word-by-word, Patrick was able to start deciphering the text. He said it was "like learning a new language" and of the six weeks in June–July 2018 he was mostly doing this he said "I was going to sleep and I was seeing his words in my mind."

First four volumes

* Volume One covers the discovery of the Americas and the colonies in the 17th century (531 pages, including index). *
Audiobook of Volume One
* Volume Two covers the period of "

salutary neglect In American history, salutary neglect was the 18th-century policy of the British Crown of avoiding the strict enforcement of parliamentary laws, especially trade laws, as long as British colonies remained loyal to the government and contributed t ...

" in the first half of the 18th century (294 pages, including index). *
Audiobook of Volume Two
* Volume Three covers the advance to revolution, from 1760–1775 (373 pages, including index). *
Audiobook of Volume Three
* Volume Four covers the political, military, and ideological history of the

revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

and after (470 pages, including index). *
Audiobook of Volume Four
*
Full text of Volumes One to Four in pdf and other formats
* Volume Five covers America after the immediate impacts of the rebellion from 1784–1791, including the Constitutional Convention to the ratification of the

Bill of Rights A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and pri ...

. (Includes separate index) *
Full text of Volume Five in pdf and other formats

Excerpts

* Volume I, Chapter 55, Pennsylvania's Anarchist Experiment: 1681–1690
Full text
(slightly edited) * Volume II, Chapter 33, The Growth of Libertarian Thought in Colonial America
Full text
* Volume II, Chapter 40, The American Colonies and the

War War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

Online text
(slightly edited)

Publishing history

* New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House Publishers: ** Volume I. 1975. . ** Volume II. 1975. . ** Volume III. 1976. . ** Volume IV. 1979. . * Liberty Tree Press, 1989. Paperback. . * Auburn, Alabama:

Ludwig von Mises Institute Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics, or Mises Institute, is a libertarian nonprofit think tank headquartered in Auburn, Alabama, United States. It is named after the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973). It wa ...

, 2019. Paperback. 332 pages. . ** Volume V * Auburn, Alabama:

, 2000. Hardcover. 1668 pages. . ** Volumes I–V

References

{{Rothbard books 1975 non-fiction books 1976 non-fiction books 1979 non-fiction books American history books Books by Murray Rothbard English-language books History books about the American Revolution Libertarianism in the United States