Contact info:
(205) 726-2434
Cumberland School of Law, Samford University, Birmingham, AL 35229
My web page at the law school (includes my bio and email address).

I'm currently developing a set of webpages for my summer class on "Legal Process," open to incoming first-year students and students in Cumberland's MCL program.  Comments are welcome:
    The Core of American Law on a Single Page
    American Constitutional History in 34 Quotations
    British/American Legal Timeline
    A Hedgehog's Legal Glossary

Roger Clegg and I are co-editors of the Federalist Society's "Conservative and Libertarian Legal Scholarship: An Annotated Bibliography" and "The Conservative and Libertarian Pre-Law Reading List".

I'm a guest blogger at Division of Labour and Point of Law.  Check 'em out!
 

Please send along comments, suggestions, warnings about broken links, etc.
Last updated on  May 9, 2013.

        I don't think we're saying anything new here.  I think we're just saying the things that need
        to be said again and again, with fierce conviction.
                                                                -- Astronaut "Deke" Slayton character in film version
                                                                    of Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff"

        We need education in the obvious more than investigation of the obscure.
                                                                -- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

        To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.
                                                                -- George Orwell (1946)

        For more quotes, click here.

        For "this date in history" (well, not every date), click here.
 

                                                                TABLE OF CONTENTS

I.      Course Links -- On a separate page, here
II.     Indispensable Sites
III.    Economic Theory
IV.    Economic Analysis of Law
V.     Public Choice Theory
VI.    The Big Picture: Freedom and Unfreedom
VII.   Public Policy Debates
VIII.  The American Founding / American History
IX.     Legal System / Legal Profession & Legal Education / Law Reform
X.      Philosophy (including Legal Philosophy) / History (including Legal History)
XI.     Law Search Engines / Legal News & General Law Sites / Legal Blogs
XII.    "Great Books" and Other Literary / General Reference Desk
XIII.   Teach Yourself
XIV.   Diversions -- Now on a separate page; click here.
 

I.  COURSE LINKS -- On a separate page, here
 

II.  INDISPENSABLE SITES

    A.  Economics and economic history / freedom and its competitors

    Library of Economics and Liberty (from the generous folks at the Liberty Fund -- a terrific site!)
    Online Library of Liberty (ditto)

    Economic Freedom Network  (home of "Economic Freedom of the World: Annual Report")
    The Greatest Century That Ever Was: 25 Miraculous Trends of the Past 100 Years (by Stephen Moore & Julian Simon, 1999) (PDF)
    The First Measured Century: An Illustrated Guide to Trends in America, 1900-2000 (by Caplow, Hicks & Wattenberg, 2001)

    Taking Hayek Seriously blog (maintained by Greg Ransom)

    Minneapolis Fed's magazine interview archive

    Online Library of Liberty's "Intellectual Portrait Series"

    Blogs and podcasts for economics students (my own)

    B.  Dictionaries, literature guides, and general reference

     The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (on the Library of Economics and Liberty, edited by David Henderson)

     History of Economic Thought  (New School U.)

     Encyclopedia of Law and Economics (FindLaw)

     Dictionary of the History of Ideas (UVa)

     Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

     Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy  (UT Martin)

     WWW Virtual Library (over 250 subjects!)

    C.  Law

    USA.gov ("the U.S. Government's official web portal"-- see esp. the "Reference Center")
    The Gov't Publishing Office's Federal Digital System (the US Code, Congressional and regulatory materials)

    Google Scholar (click "Legal documents" button)

    FindLaw

    Law.com ("first in legal news and information")

    Jurist  ("legal news and research")

    Liberty Law Site and Blog  (a wonderful daily read)

III.  ECONOMIC THEORY

    I think economics, like philosophy, cannot be taught to nineteen-year olds.  It is an old man's
    field.  Nineteen-year olds are, most of them, romantics, capable of memorizing and emoting, but
    not capable of thinking coldly in the cost-and-benefit way. . . .  A nineteen-year old has
    intimations of immortality, comes directly from a socialized economy (called a family), and has no
    feel on his pulse for those tragedies of adult life that economists call scarcity and choice.
                                                                -- Donald McCloskey (1992)

A1.  The Basics

     Mankiw's 10 Principles  (It doesn't get any more succinct than this.)
     Nine fundamental principles of economics drawn from the classic intro text, "The Economic Way of Thinking"

     Free Enterprise: The Economics of Cooperation, by Dwight Lee
     Common Sense Economics, by James Gwartney, Richard Stroup & Dwight Lee
     These are the two best, short introductions to economic reasoning I know of.  (An earlier version of the latter is online here, "adapted for Canadian readers.")  A summary of "Ten Key Elements of Economics" from Common Sense Economics appeared in the Heritage Foundation's Insider, Spring 2005 (pp. 8-13 of this PDF file).

     Ten Key Ideas: Opening the Door to the Economic Way of Thinking, by Russell Roberts

     Learning Economics, by Arnold Kling (webbed intro text by the webmaster of EconLib)

     The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (edited by David Henderson)
        This is a webbed version of Fortune Magazine's Encyclopedia of Economics, also edited by Henderson.  Very clearly
        written and fully accessible to the beginner.  Thanks to the Liberty Fund, Fortune, David Henderson, and whoever else
        was involved in putting this on the web.  The Encyclopedia is part of a larger website, the
        Library of Economics and Liberty, that is indispensible.

    Keystone Economic Principles (nine key points, in PDF, from the Powell Economic Education Foundation)

    Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt.  This classic text was first published in 1946.

     The Nature of Man, by Michael Jensen & William Meckling (PDF)

     Economics for the Citizen -- Ten short introductory essays by the prolific Walter Williams of the George Mason economics department. 

     Economics Internet Library, by Walter Antoniotti (with links to other business sites by the same editor)

     The Concise Guide to Economics (3d ed.), by Jim Cox  (also here)

     Capitalism FAQ

    The Richmond Federal Reserve Bank's quarterly magazine, "Econ Focus," regularly carries good, short articles under the headings "Jargon Alert" (economics terms), "Interview" (famous and semi-famous economists), and "Economic History" (mostly of the states in the Bank's region).

    The Mercatus Center at George Mason University focuses its publications efforts on helping "policy makers, and others involved in the policy process, make more effective decisions by incorporating insights from sound, interdisciplinary research – with an emphasis on the role of 'institutions' in promoting prosperity."  Particularly recommended:  Liberalism and Cronyism: Two Rival Political and Economic Systems, by Randall Holcombe & Andrea Castillo, and The Role of Property Rights as an Institution by Karol Boudreaux.

     Economic Literacy Project (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis)

     The Economist magazine's economics dictionary.

     P.J. O'Rourke's interviewed about his book Eat the Rich (C-SPAN, 1999) 

     My list of economics blogs and podcasts.

A2.  The Next Level

     Price Theory: An Intermediate Text (2d ed. 1990) by David Friedman (suitable for college juniors; a terrific resource)
            Friedman's C-SPAN interview re his Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life (1996)
     Introduction to Economic Analysis: The Open Source Introduction to Microeconomics by Preston McAfee (PDF) (used in the intro course at Cal Tech)
     Essential Principles of Economics: A Hypermedia Text (2007) by Roger McCain
     CyberEconomics: An Analysis of Unintended Consequences by Robert Schenk (webbed textbook)
     Economics Interactive Tutorials (courtesy of the U. of S. Carolina School of Public Health)
     Economics in Excel by J. Wilson Mixon, Jr. & Soumaya M. Tohamy
     Managerial Economics by Richard Stanford (webbed textbook)
     Price Theory, a nice website for Steven Landsburg's intermediate textbook
     Tutor2uEconomics (U.K. college entrance materials)
     Russell Roberts's books, The Choice and The Invisible Heart, are described and previewed here.

    Numerous online courses available on MRUniversity (an offshot of the Marginal Revolution blog, noted below)
    Free online course from Carnegie Mellon U: Introductory Economics

     Economics Radio
     Economics at the Idea Channel (links and videos of big name economists)

B.  Economic History / History of Economics

     Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics

     Short biographies of free-market theorists (from the Dallas Fed's "Economic Insights" publication)
     Great economists and their times (from the San Francisco Fed)
     Essay on the history of Nobel prize in economics, by chair of selection committee
     Article on Nobel prize in economics (from Minneapolis Fed, 1999)

      Adam Smith, THE WEALTH OF NATIONS and The Theory of Moral Sentiments (searchable)
      P.J. O'Rourke on The Wealth of Nations (2007) text and video
      Adam Smith Institute (UK)
      Adam Smith -- A Primer, by Eamonn Butler (IEA, 2007)
      The Condensed Wealth of Nations, by Eamonn Butler (Adam Smith Institute, 2011)
      Alan Macfarlane, Adam Smith and the Making of the Modern World (2000) (PDF file)
                from Macfarlane's 2000 book, The Riddle of the Modern World
      Economics and the Ordinary Person: Re-reading Adam Smith by Sam Fleischacker (2004)
      The Relevance of Adam Smith by Robert Hetzel (1976)
      Alan Greenspan, "Adam Smith Memorial Lecture" (2005)
          Another address by Greenspan in the Smithian vein (2004)
      Adam Smith "interview" (1994)
      My links page on the Scottish Enlightenment is here.

     Adam Smith and all that, by John Creedy (2002) (comic relief in PDF)

     Israel Kirzner, The Economic Point of View: An Essay in the History of Economic Thought (1960, 1976)

     A History of Economic Analysis, by Roger Backhouse (webbed textbook, 1985)
     Downloadable history of economic thought books, 1588-1999 (McMaster U.)

     The Secret History of the Dismal Science, by David Levy & Sandra Peart (2001),
            and later installments here.

     Lawrence Boland's webpage (Simon Fraser U., many articles and books available for download)

     Wealth of Notions, from the U. of Chicago Alumni magazine, about Chicago Nobelists (2001)
     Arnold Harberger interview (1999)
     George Stigler interview (1989)
     Milton Friedman interview (2000)
     Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics (U. of Chicago)

     Kenneth Arrow on Cowles in the History of Economic Thought (1983)

C.  International Economics / Free Trade

     The Candlemakers' Petition, by Frederic Bastiat
     The Case for Free Trade, by Milton & Rose Friedman
     The Choice: A Fable of Free Trade and Protectionism, by Russell Roberts (excerpt)
     The Fruits of Free Trade (Dallas Fed 2002 annual report)
     Jagdish Bhagwati's home page (Columbia U. economist, perennial member of Nobel Prize short list)
     International Economics Study Center (textbook & more from Geo Wash U prof; free registration)

D.  Numbers

     Resources for Economists on the Internet, courtesy of the American Economic Association
     FedStats.gov, "statistics from more than 100 agencies"
     Economic Reports of the President, 1995-2013 (Executive Office of the President)
     Statistical Resources on the Web (U. of Michigan; a great site!)
     National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
     Economic Time Series Page
     Measuring Worth (successor to How Much Is That?)
     Statistics on the Web
     SurfStat.australia (on-line statistics text)
     The Web Center for Social Research Methods (Cornell)
     Institute for Quantitative Social Science (Harvard)
     The Chance Project (Dartmouth)
     Statistical Assessment Service, critiques media use of statistics
     WebMath (large site, ranging from help for grade schoolers doing their homework, on up)
     John Allen Paulos's home page (the author of Innumeracy, and A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market)
     Andrew Gelman's statistics blog

      Free online courses from Carnegie Mellon U: Statistics and Causal & Statistical Reasoning and Empirical Research Methods
      The Joy of Stats -- BBC and Open University course
      see also Sykes, "An Introduction to Regression Analysis" in section IV, below

E.  Austrian Economics

F.  Game Theory / Experimental Economics

IV.  ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF LAW

    The same persons who cry down Logic will generally warn you against Political Economy.  It is
    unfeeling, they will tell you.  It recognises unpleasant facts.  For my part, the most unfeeling thing
    I know of is the law of gravitation: it breaks the neck of the best and most amiable person without
    scruple, if he forgets for a single moment to give heed to it.  The winds and waves too are very
    unfeeling.  Would you advise those who go to sea to deny then winds and waves -- or to make
    use of them, and find the means of guarding against their dangers?  My advice to you is to study
    the great writers on Political Economy, and hold firmly by whatever in them you find true; and
    depend on it that if you are not selfish or hard-hearted already, Political Economy will not make
    you so.
                                                                -- John Stuart Mill (1867)

     Richard Epstein's homepage.
            The full text of his 2005 book, Free Markets Under Seige, is available online courtesy of the Hoover Institution.
            There are a number of his writings on the website of the New Zealand Business Roundtable (search on "Epstein").
            His book, Principles for a Free Society, is summarized in his 1998 speech at AEI by the same title.
           See also his Reason magazine interview, in section VI, below.

      Richard Posner's homepage.  He was interviewed by Reason magazine in April 2001, and appeared on C-SPAN to discuss his book, Public Intellectuals, in 2002.  Also in 2002, Posner allowed a week's worth of his diary entries to be published on Slate; click here for the Friday installment, which includes links to the other 4 days of that week.
      You may view video clips of an interview of Judge Posner at Big Think.
      Project Posner is a searchable database of hundreds of Judge Posner's opinions, from 1981 to 2006.  A great resource!
      In 2007 both the University of Chicago Law Review and the Harvard Law Review published special issues celebrating Posner's 25th anniversary on the beach, with many of the authors focusing on a single Posner opinion each.

       In 2010 the University of Chicago  Law Review published a special issue celebrating Judge Frank Easterbook's 25 years on the 7th Circuit.

     Ronald Coase interview (Reason, January 1997)
     recent article about Coase (Nov. 2004)
            the Ronald Coase Institute
            the Contracting and Organizations Research Institute, work in the Coasian vein, at the U. of Missouri
     Autobiographical essay by Coase (1991)
     1991 Nobel Prize in economics to Ronald Coase
           Coase lecture at U. of Chicago, April 2003 (Quick Time)

     1992 Nobel Prize in economics to Gary Becker
           interview of Becker  (June 2002)
     The Becker-Posner Blog (yep!)
 

V.  PUBLIC CHOICE THEORY

        In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political issues,
        and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. . . .  Political
        language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to
        give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
                                                                                        -- George Orwell (1946)

        The U.S. government is a sort of permanent frat pledge to every special interest in the
        nation -- willing to undertake any task no matter how absurd or useless. . . .  Politics
        would not exist if it weren't for special interests.  If the effect of government were always
        the same on everyone and if no one stood to lose or gain anything from government
        except what his fellows did, there would be little need for debate and no need for
        coalitions, parties or intrigue. . . .  The whole idea of our government is this: If enough
        people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it.
                                                                                        -- P.J. O'Rourke (1991)

     U. of Chicago Olin Program in Law & Economics Working Papers includes numerous papers of interest in PDF, including:
                #60.  John R. Lott, Jr., "How Dramatically Did Women's Suffrage Change the Size and
                            Scope of Government?" (September 1998)
                #54.  Denise DiPasquale & Edward L. Glaeser, "Incentives and Social Capital: Are
                            Homeowners Better Citizens?" (April 1998)
                #52.  John R. Lott, Jr., "A Simple Explanation for Why Campaign Expenditures Are
                            Increasing: The Government is Getting Bigger" (February 1998)
                #34.  J. Mark Ramseyer, "Public Choice" (November 1994)
     Public choice resource page from Constitution.org
     "Yes, Minister" was a very popular British TV show that satirized politics, often along lines consistent with public choice theory.  For a good fansite, check out The Yes (Prime) Minister Files.
     Charles Adam's C-SPAN interview re his For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization (1993)
     Ilya Somin, When Ignorance Isn't Bliss: How Political Ignorance Threatens Democracy (Cato, 2004, pdf)
     Analyzing Politics: Rationality, Behavior & Institutions, to accompany the Shepsle & Bonchek textbook
     Open Secrets  (campaign contributions database)
     Farm Subsidy Database, from the Environmental Working Group
     Vote View, info on Congressional voting patterns from Keith Poole of the U of Georgia
     Mathew McCubbins' home page (UC San Diego)
     Randall Holcombe's homepage (Florida State U.)
     Kenneth Arrow interview (1995)
     Politics, Philosophy & Economics (journal)
     Bruno Frey's public choice research group at U.of Zurich (in English)
     Center for Study of Public Choice (George Mason U.)
           Public Choice Society
     Short article on tax legislation as opportunity for extortion

     Gordon Tullock homepage (George Mason U.)
     Papers on Gordon Tullock's career on his 80th birthday
     Tullock interview (2003)
     Tullock on privilege seeking

VI.  THE BIG PICTURE:  FREEDOM AND ITS COMPETITORS

    The great and chief end of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under
    government, is the preservation of their property.
                                                                                       -- John Locke (1690)

    The Dane never showed up but they had the "seminar" anyway, under some shade trees
    in a place called the French Park.  Jay Bomarr opened it with his famous speech, "Come
    Dream Along with Me."  I had heard it myself, at Ole Miss of all places, back in the days
    when Jay was drawing big crowds.  It was a dream of blood and smashed faces, with a
    lot of talk about "the people," whose historic duty it was to become a nameless herd and
    submit their lives to the absolute control of a small pack of wily and vicious intellectuals.
                                                                                        -- Charles Portis, "The Dog of the
                                                                                            South" (1979)

     Richard Epstein interview (April 1995 issue of Reason)
     Richard Pipes, "Life, Liberty, Property" (1999)
     Richard Pipes, Property and Freedom: The Inseparable Connection (2004)
     Survey: Capitalism and Democracy, from The Economist, June 26, 2003, the magazine's 160th birthday.
     P.J. O'Rourke, The Liberty Manifesto (1993)
     P.J. O'Rourke, Closing the Wealth Gap (1997)
     P.J. O'Rourke, A Message to Redistributionists (1997)
     P.J. O'Rourke, The Problem is Politics (2008)
     P.J. O'Rourke and Robert Bork reminisce about the '60s (1997)
     Paul Heyne, Moral Misunderstanding and the Justification of Markets (1998)
     Tibor Machan's recent papers (philosopher concerned with economic rights/liberties)

     Bruce Bartlett, How Excessive Government Killed Ancient Rome (1994)

     Sean Gabb, How English Liberalism was Created by Accident and Custom, and then Destroyed by Liberals
     Frederic Bastiat site
     Frederic Bastiat, The Law (1850) -- also here and here  

    The Progressive Movement and the Transformation of American Politics, by West & Schambra (2007)

     The New Deal Network, from the Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt Institute  
     Great Myths of the Great Depression, by Lawrence Reed 
     The Declaration of Independence in American, by H.L. Mencken (1918)
     Constitution for the New Deal, by H.L. Mencken (1937)
     The Revolution Was, by Garet Garrett (1938)

    Liberty at Risk: The Least Every Citizen Should Know About Capitalism and its Enemies, by Dean Worcester, late professor of economics at the U. of Washington, in PDF
    Liberty Story (edited by author Jim Powell)  

    The Heritage Foundation's 2012 Index of Government Dependency
    The Welfare State We're In blog

    American Universities and the Betrayal of Liberty (2006) by Alan Charles Kors (audio)
    David Horowitz's Discover the Network: "a guide to the political left"

    Coercion v. consent: How to think about liberty (A Reason magazine (March '04) debate featuring Richard Epstein, Randy Barnett, David Friedman, and James Pinkerton)
    Gertrude Himmelfarb's C-SPAN interview re her book, The De-Moralization of Society (1995)
    Samuel Brittan, Financial Times columnist

     Economic Freedom of the World Annual Report (Gwartney & Lawson)
           Economic Freedom Network
    Index of Economic Freedom (excerpts) (Miles, Feulner & O'Grady)
    Gapminder World (cool graphics)   
    NationMaster (worldwide statistics)

     Peter Bauer was an eloquent free-market economist whose career has been devoted to the field of developmental economics.  In 2002, the Cato Institute awarded him its first "Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty."  See Cato's tribute to Bauer.
     Mancur Olson was an economist at the University of Maryland who died suddenly in 1998.  His later work was devoted to questions of economic development -- in particular the importance of legal and other institutions to economic growth and human welfare.  A number of his writings are available online by searching on "mancur" here.
     Julian Simon also taught at Maryland at the time of his death, also untimely and also in 1998.  He wrote about population growth, immigration, and other topics in an optimisitcally iconoclastic mode.  His colleague Stephen Moore's tribute is here.  See also their lengthy article, The Greatest Century That Ever Was: 25 Miraculous Trends of the Past 100 Years (1999) (PDF)
    Along the same lines as Simon's work, see Caplow, Hicks & Wattenberg, The First Measured Century: An Illustrated Guide to Trends in America, 1900-2000 (2001).  The website for the companion PBS program is here.
     Also in this vein, see the very readable feature stories in the annual reports of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

    Avner Greif, Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade, Cambridge U. Press.  and on his website.

     The Rational Optimist -- author Matt Ridley -- his blog 

     The Industrial Revolution: Past and Future by Robert Lucas, for the Minneapolis Fed, May 2004
     Forbes Magazine's 85th Anniversary Issue is chock-full of interesting business history items.
     Jerry L. Jordan, Sources of Prosperity (1998)
     Dynamist.com,the work of Virginia Postrel, current NY Times economics columnist and former editor of Reason magazine, includes her blog.  See also her C-SPAN interview re her book, The Future and Its Enemies (1999).
     See the website for the PBS program "Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy" in Section III.B., above
     Institute for Humane Studies (George Mason U.)
     International Society for Individual Liberty, the successor to Free-Market.net
           Henry Hazlitt Foundation (archives only)
     Intellectual Conservative
     Economist Magazine's Survey of the 20th Century (9-11-1999)
     John Stossel (ABC News) program, "Is America #1?: The Success & Failure of Societies" (transcript, 9-19-99)
     15 lectures on democracy at Yale University, 2001 (text and audio)
     Dave Barry interview (1994)

     World Development, Inc.
     Publications and working papers of
           Harvard economists Robert Barro, Edward Glaeser, and Andrei Shleifer are available here.
           Dartmouth economist Raphael LaPorta available here.
           MIT economist Daron Acemoglu available here.
     Hernando DeSoto interviews 2001 and 1999
     DeSoto, Citadels of Dead Capital (May 2001)

     The Legacy of Milton and Rose Friedman's Free to Choose (papers from a conference at the Dallas Fed, 2003)

     William F. Buckley archive (a huge site, hosted by Hillsdale College)
     Firing Line Television Program Collection (hosted by the Hoover Institution)

     Thomas Sowell's homepage
         Thomas Sowell interviews 1999 and 2001 

     Eric Voegelin Institute at LSU (20th c. political philosopher)
         Eric Voegelin study page
          Voegelin View

     Michael Oakeshott Association (UK) (another 20th c. political philosopher)

     Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library (UK) (20th c. philosopher)

    The Churchill Centre (Washington, DC)
    Churchill Archives Centre (U. of Cambridge)

     Pope John Paul II's encyclicals on "The Hundredth Year" (capitalism vs. socialism) and
        "Faith and Reason" (epistemology, modernism, etc.)
      Margaret Thatcher Foundation, "offers free access to the full texts of thousands of documents relating to the politics of the last quarter of a century"
      Margaret Thatcher symposium, with a nice links page (Chapman U., 2002)
      Ronald Reagan Presidential Library (NARA and U. of Texas)
      Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation

     James C. Bennett, The Anglosphere Challenge (why the English-speaking nations will lead the way in the 21st century")
           The Anglosphere Institute
           Albion's Seedlings (blog)

     C-SPAN interviews of
           Paul Hollander re his Anti-Americanism (1992)
            David Gelernter re his Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber (1997)
            Mona Charen re her Useful Idiots (2003)

     Getting Rich in America: A Few Easy Rules to Follow, by Richard McKenzie & Dwight Lee
     Guide to Personal Finance (Malcolm Getz, Vanderbilt U.)
     Paul Romer, Economic Growth, in Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics
            and his essay on Economic Growth for the 2nd edition of the Encyclopedia, due out 2007
         Romer interview (requires registration; 1997)
         Wired magazine on Romer's work, 1996
     The Milken Institute
     Piercing the Gloom and Doom, by Herbert London (1999)

     John Fonte, Why There Is a Culture War (2000; it's Tocqueville vs. Gramsci)
     Robert Nozick, Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism? (1998)
     Center for Media and Public Affairs (Robert Lichter's group)

     A History of Liberty, from the Acton Institute
 
     Francis Fukuyama's homepage (Stanford U.)

     UCSB Center for Evolutionary Psychology (includes "Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer")
     Tom Bethell, Against Sociobiology (2001)

     The Freeman (monthly, Foundation for Economic Education)
     Policy Review (bi-monthly, Hoover Institution)
     Independent Review (quarterly, Independent Institute)

     1993 Nobel Prize in economics to Robert Vogel and Douglass North
           Center for New Institutional Social Sciences, Washington U. (St. Louis)
 

VII.  PUBLIC POLICY DEBATES

    RegInfo.gov  "Where to find Federal Regulatory Information"
    FedStats.gov, "statistics from more than 100 agencies"

A.  Timely Sites (including blogs)

     Investors Business Daily editorial page
     Wall Street Journal editorial page
         The Journal editorial board's list of (and links to) their favorite websites.
         Best of the Web daily from the Journal
     Town Hall
           Townhall Columnists (collection of more than 60 conservative columnists)
     The American Prowler (from The American Spectator)
     Freedom News Daily

     Mark Steyn
     James Lileks (the daily commentary ("The Bleat") is only part of what's on offer here; don't miss The Institute of Official
        Cheer, the Old Ad Archive, or the Bureau of Corporate Allegory!)
     Rush Limbaugh
     Michael Barone's blog
     Victor Davis Hanson (classical scholar, military historian)
     Michael Novak, "author, philosopher, theologian"
     My favorite Washington Post columnists are Charles Krauthammer, Robert Samuelson, and George Will.
     Michael Kelly archives, 1999-2003
     National Journal

     Ben Wattenberg's Think Tank (PBS program)
     Peter Robinson's Uncommon Knowledge (ditto)
     Larry Sabato's Center for Politics at UVA
 
     Daniel Drezner blogs on and teaches international relations at Tufts U.
     David Warren's "Essays on our Times"  

     The American Scene blog promises "an ongoing review of politics and culture"
     Hit and Run is Reason Magazine's blog
     Ideas in Action TV (host Jim Glassman)           

     Citizens' Guide to Conservative Organizations (from the Heartland Institute)
     Policy Experts: The Insider Guide to Public Policy Experts and Organizations (from the Heritage Foundation)
     "Freedom Directory" links to "nearly 500 think tanks worldwide" (from the Atlas Foundation)

     Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty
            Blog:  PowerBlog
     American Enterprise Institute
             Events archive
     Atlas Economic Research Foundation
     Cato Institute
            Blog:  Cato at Liberty
            Online magazine:  Cato Unbound
            Podcasts archive
     Competitive Enterprise Institute
            Blog:  CEI Open Market
     Heritage Foundation
            Blog:  Heritage Policy Blog
            Blog:  The Insider
            Events archive
           Regulation Watch (Heritage's "one-stop page for information on regulation in America")
     Hoover Institution
     Independent Institute
     Especially for state and local issues:
           Citizens for a Sound Economy (includes link to Alabama chapter)
           Heartland Institute
                   Blog:  From the Heartland
           Mackiniac Center (based in Michigan, but includes lots of more general material, too)
           John Locke Institute (based in North Carolina)
           Pope Center for Higher Education (a fine site)
           Faculty Affiliate Network (every state should have one of these)
               Blog:  The Locker Room
          Alabama Policy Institute
     see also section I.D. of the Course Links page (especially Regulation.org and Regulation Magazine)
 

VIII.  THE AMERICAN FOUNDING / AMERICAN HISTORY

        And you may ask yourself -- Well . . . How did I get here?
                                                     -- David Byrne (Talking Heads), "Once in a Lifetime"
                                                               (sometime in the '80s) (video)

        The characteristic danger of great nations, like the Romans and the English, which have a
        long history of continuous creation, is that they may at last fail from not comprehending
        the great institutions that they have created.
                                                    -- Walter Bagehot (1832)

     Federalist Society bibliography (scroll down to the founding)

     The Founders' Constitution (a terrific resource, from the U. of Chicago Press)
     The Founders' Almanac (ditto, from The Heritage Foundation)
     Constitutional Convention and Ratification of the Constitution (from Teaching American History at Ashland U.)
     Center for the Constitution (James Madison's Montpelier)
     Bruce Frohnen, ed., The American Republic: Primary Sources

     The Papers of George Washington (UVa)
     Thomas Jefferson Digital Archive (UVa)
     George Mason online

     C-SPAN interviews of
            Bernard Baylyn re his To Begin the World Anew (2003)
            Michael Novak re his On Two Wings (2002)
            Gordon Wood re his  The American Revolution (2002)
            Thomas West re his Vindicating the Founders (1997)
            Kent Newmyer re his John Marshall and the Heroic Age of the Supreme Court (2002)

     American Memory (Library of Congress)
     A Timeline of American Thought
     American Political History On-line (Richard Jensen, UIC)
     American Experience (PBS)
     Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History (includes search engine for the Gilder Lehrman Collection)
     American History HTML Project
     De Tocqueville's Democracy in America (searchable)
         Alexis de Tocqueville  page
         Harvey Mansfield's C-SPAN interview re his translation of Tocqueville (2000)
     American Heritage magazine
     HarpWeek:  Harper's Weekly in the 19th century
     Making of America (U. of Michigan site containing thousands of 19th century journals and books)
     Department of American Studies, UVA (very cool American culture site)
     Teaching American History  (from the Ashbrook Center @ Ashbrook U.)
     History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web (George Mason U.)
     Paul Johnson C-SPAN interview re his History of the American People (1998)
         Review of Johnson's History of the American People, by Hadley Arkes
     Outline of U.S. History, by Alonzo Hamby
      State Digital Resources, including online encyclopedias (Library of Congress)

    Gordon Lloyd's excellent web pages on, inter alia, the American Founding, the French Revolution, political economy, and the New Deal (links are at the bottom of this page)
 

IX.  LEGAL SYSTEM / LEGAL PROFESSION & LEGAL EDUCATION / LAW REFORM

     THE FEDERALIST SOCIETY FOR LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY STUDIES
            Blog -- Multimedia Archive 
     Understanding the Federal Courts, from the Administrative Office of the US Courts
     US Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics
     RAND Corporation Institute for Civil Justice 
     C-SPAN's America and the Courts
     From the Encyclopedia of Law and Economics:
        # 9000, General Character of Rules, by Kaplow
        # 9200, Judge Made Law, by Rubin
        # 7100, Judicial Organization and Administration, by Kornhauser
        # 7000, Civil Procedure: General, by Kobayashi & Parker

     The Oyez Project: U.S. Supreme Court Multimedia (Northwestern U.)
      U.S. Supreme Court (official site)
     Supreme Court Database (Washington U. St. Louis)
     Exploring Constitutional Law, Doug Linder (UMKC Law School)

     Clegg & DeBow, Conservative and Libertarian Pre-Law Reading List (for the Federalist Society)
     Clegg & DeBow, Pre-law prerequisities: A guide to the post-socialist world (Policy Review, 1994)
      John McGinnis, Impeachable Defenses  --  Excellent article discussing, among other things, the dominant ideology among law professors and in the law schools.  Highly recommended !
     Jurist: The Law Professors' Network  (good source for legal news)
     The Green Bag ("An Entertaining Journal of Law")

     Lawyers, Gums, and Rummies: Why do we hate lawyers (Walter Olson)
     Walter Olson's homepage (legal reform)
     Olson runs 2 blogs on problems in our legal system and the need for reform: Overlawyered.com and PointofLaw.com
     Trial Lawyers Inc. ("a report on the lawsuit industry in America")
     Association of Trial Lawyers of America  vs.  American Tort Reform Association
            see also ATRA's Tracking the Trial Lawyers re campaign contributions
     Institute for Legal Reform of the US Chamber of Commerce offers a good links page
     American Justice Partnership's "legal reform in the news"
     C-SPAN interviews of
         Max Boot re his Out of Order: Arrogance, Corruption, and Incompetence on the Bench (1998)
         Dennis Hutchinson re his The Forgotten Memoir of John Knox (2002)

    American Law Institute(where Restatements come from)
    National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (where uniform acts come from)

X.  PHILOSOPHY (INCLUDING LEGAL PHILOSOPHY) / HISTORY (INCLUDING LEGAL HISTORY)

    To be ignorant of what happened before you were born . . . is to live the life of a child forever.
                                                                                                                                 -- Cicero

    Federalist Society bibliography (scroll down to jurisprudence)
    Dictionary of Key Terms for a Free and Virtuous Society (Acton Institute)
    Classical Political Theory Web and Modern Political Theory websites (Western Illinois U.)

    Legal Theory Lexicon -- described by its author, Professor Lawrence Solum of the U. of Illinois law school, as "basic concepts in legal theory for first year law students" -- highly recommended.  His Legal Theory  blog focuses on legal philosophy.
    Jurisprudence: An Overview (from Cornell's Legal Information Institute)
    Philosophy of law links
    Excerpts from Randy Barnett, The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law
    Oxford U. legal philosophy sites here and here
    U. of Texas law and philosophy program

    Robert Bork on the future of the rule of law (First Things, Jan. 2000)
    Bork's C-SPAN interview re his Slouching Towards Gomorrah (1996)
    Robert Bork, ed., A Country I Do Not Recognize: The Legal Assault on American Values (2005).  Bork's introduction and essays by Lino Graglia, Gary McDowell, Terry Eastland, David Davenport, and Lee Casey & David Rivkin are downloadable, free, as PDF files.

    Robert George, What Is Law? A Century of Arguments (First Things, April 2001)
    J. Budziszewski, The Revenge of Conscience (First Things, June/July 1998)
    J. Budziszewski, Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law reviewed (First Things, Nov. 1997)
    Symposium: The End of Democracy? The Judicial Usurpation of Politics (First Things, Nov. 1996)
            symposium continued (First Things, January 1997)
            symposium critiqued (Commentary Magazine, Feb. 1997)
            Budziszewski, Tne Future of the End of Democracy (First Things, March 1999)
    Steven Smith, The Constitution in the Cave (First Things, May 2000)
    Symposium: The Supreme Court 2000 (First Things, October 2000)
    Steven Smith, Legal Theories Nobody Believes (First Things, November 2000) (review of 2 books on the Warren Court and one on the Burger Court)
    Judge Edith Jones, Contemporary Threats to the Rule of Law, James Madison Program, Princeton U., 2001 (pdf)
    Michael Uhlmann, The Supreme Court Rules (First Things, October 2003)
    Steven Smith, Conciliating Hatred (First Things, June/July 2004)
    Michael Uhlmann, The Supreme Court Rules: 2004 (First Things, October 2004)

     Dictionary of the History of Ideas (UVa)
     Thoemmes Encylcopedia of the History of Ideas

     Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
     Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (including Philosophy Text Collection)
     Meta-Encyclopedia of Philosophy  (search engine for on-line philosophy encyclopedias)

     WWW Virtual Library: Philosophy
     Episteme Links
     Hippias (philosophy search engine)
     American Philosophical Association links pages
     Philosophy Around the Web by Peter King
     Sean's One-Stop Philosophy Shop (click on heading at top left side of the page)
      Plato and His Dialogues
      The Radical Academy: Philosophy, Politics, and the Human Condition
      Philosophy since the Enlightenment by Roger Jones
      Utilitarianism Resources
      Blackwell Publishers' philosophy page
     Wadsworth Publishers' philosophy page
     Routledge Publishers' philosophy page
     The Philosophers' Magazine
     Philosophy News Service
     Philosophy Now, "a magazine of ideas"
     The Edge
     Pathways to Philosophy distance learning programs
           Ask a Philosopher (courtesy of Pathways, just above)
     Society for Philosophical Inquiry, begun by the author of Socrates' Cafe
     John Searle interviewed, defends "free speech, free inquiry, and the Enlightenment" (Reason, Feb. 2000)
     Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

    List of 172 of the most common logical fallacies, from the IEM
    Stephen's Guide to the Logical Fallacies, informal logic
    The Fallacy Files, mostly informal logic
    Constructing a Logical Argument, informal logic
    Logic Primer, formal logic from Texas A&M
    Introduction to Logic (Oxford U.)

    Free online course from Carnegie Mellon U: Logic & Proofs

    The Critical Thinking Community is apprently based at Sonoma State U.
    Critical Thinking on the Web links page

    The Ism Book: A Field Guide to the Nomenclature of Philosophy

     Inside British History (BBC)
     BBC History TV & Radio Programmes archive
     Simon Schama, A History of Britain (BBC)
     British History resources on Britannia.com
     Law and Society in England 1750-1950 by Cornish & Clark (1989).  A landmark, in PDF.
     War of the Roses
     British Civil Wars, Commonwealth and Protectorate 1638-60
     The Oliver Cromwell Website
     Harvard historian Mark Kishlansky's lecture on Cromwell (video)
     Glorious Revolution of 1688
     Eighteenth Century Resources (Rutgers)
     Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution  (George Mason U.)
     Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
     The Victorian Web 
     The First World War 

     Jurist subject guide to legal history
     American Society for Legal History
     Western Legal Tradition (interesting undergraduate course page at American U., from ancient civilizations to Hobbes & Locke)

     Ancient Legal Texts
     Roman Law Resources  (U. of Glasgow)
     Netserf: Medieval Law (contains texts by famous legal historians F.W. Maitland (under "Common") and H.S. Maine (under "Roman")
     Medieval Legal History

    The Internet History Sourcebook Project offers extensive material on ancient , medieval , and modern history.  You could probably re-teach yourself the basics of "Western Civ" with this site.  For an on-line Western Civ course taught by the same guy who runs the Sourcebook Project, go to The Shaping of the Modern World.  Other large Western Civ web sites include:
           Exploring Ancient World Cultures (U. of Evansville)
           World Cultures: An Internet Classroom and Anthology  (Washington State U.)
           Internet Classics Archive (MIT)
           Perseus Project  (Tufts)
           Electronic Resources for Classicists (UC Irvine)

    WWW Virtual Library History Central Catalogue

    The Labyrinth: Resources for Medieval Studies (Georgetown U.)
    Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies (CUNY College of Staten Island)
    Another Sort of Learning, James V. Schall, S.J., Georgetown Dept.of Government
    Roman Catholic Political Philosophy (James Schall)

    Scholars' Guide to the WWW, by Richard Jensen, offers many history links among other subjects
    Hanover Historical Texts Project
    Best of History Web Sites
    20th Century History Books, a bookseller
    Directory of History Journals

    Eyewitness to History 

    The St. Thomas More Web Site
    Sir Edward Coke
    Lord Mansfield
    William Blackstone
        his "Commentaries on the Laws of England" (1765-69)
        another version of the Commentaries
    Jeremy Bentham
        
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
          The Common Law (1881)
          The Path of the Law (1897)
 

XI.  LAW SEARCH ENGINES / LEGAL NEWS & GENERAL LAW SITES / LEGAL BLOGS

    GOOGLE SCHOLAR recently added "Legal Opinions and Journals."

     FindLaw
     Law.com ("first in legal news and information")
     Jurist ("legal news and research")
 
     Fox News Law Center
     CNN Law Center
     Court TV
    Wall Street Journal Law Blog

     Cornell's Legal Information Institute
     Voice of the Shuttle (Humanities Research): Legal Studies
     Hieros Gamos ("#1 legal research center")
     FedLaw (Center for Regulatory Effectiveness)

     The Faculty Lounge is a group blog of law professors
 

XII.   "GREAT BOOKS" AND OTHER LITERARY / GENERAL REFERENCE DESK

    Samford U. Library research site  -- a very useful site for students with access to the Samford network -- offers a search engine that includes the Wall Street Journal, and the "Academic Universe" service of Lexis-Nexis (much legal material !)
    WikiPedia, "the free encyclopedia"
    Information Please Almanac  (includes encyclopedia & dictionary)
    Encyclopedia.com
    Columbia Encyclopedia (6th ed. 2000-04)
    Internet Public Library
    Librarians Index to the Internet
    RefDesk.com
    Answers.com "online dictionary, encyclopedia, and much more"
    How Stuff Works

    Library of Congress's Annotated List of Reference Websites   

     Encyclopedia Britannica Concise
    The Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911 edition

    Access the Great Books  (Encyclopedia Britannica)
    The Great Ideas Program (also from EB, with many links)
    Center for the Study of the Great Ideas  (founded by Mortimer Adler)
    WGN Radio Extension 720 (recent books, hosted by Milt Rosenberg)
           Milt's File (his blog)
    College Great Books Programs (by William Casement)
    Vancouver Island U. great books program

    Bartleby.com: Great Books Online
    The Harvard Classics ("The most comprehensive and well-researched anthology of all time comprises both the 50-volume '5-foot shelf of books' and the the 20-volume Shelf of Fiction. Together they cover every major literary figure, philosopher, religion, folklore and historical subject through the twentieth century.")

    My page of literary links

    Project Gutenberg ("20,000 free ebooks")
    Great Books of the Western World
    Electronic Text Center
    Digital Texts Projects (Columbia U.)
    On-Line Literature Library
    On-Line Books Page (U. of Penn.)
    Eserver.org  (Iowa State)
    ReadPrint ("your free online library")
    The Literature Network ("online classic literature, poems, and quotes")
    WikiSource ("an online library of free content")

    LibriVox ("provides free audiobooks from the public domain")

    American Writers (C-SPAN)
    BookTV (C-SPAN2)
    Booknotes (C-SPAN)
    Wired for Books (Ohio U.'s literary audio site)
    Contentions, Commentary magazine's blog (the Friday feature, "Weekend Reading," is a "greatest hits" sort of thing)
    Between the Covers (National Review Online audio)

    Real Clear Books

    Arts & Letters Daily

     LitQuotes ("quotations from the great works of literature")
     Quoteland
     Random quotes from Mark Twain, WC Fields, Groucho Marx

    Great map/satellite photo sites:
       Google Maps
       Yahoo Maps Beta
       National Geographic maps
       Bing maps

    2010 Statistical Abstract of the United States (excerpts & tables)
    2000 Census   (official site)
      American Factfinder (census gateway, easy-to-use)
    StateMaster (hours of fun!)
    City-Data.com (mostly census data, but presented in very useful format)
    ePodunk (ditto, includes collection of old postcards)
    Social Science Data Analysis Network (Michigan) (includes CensusScope site)
    Social Science Data on the Net
    National Opinion Research Center (U. of Chicago)
    Rasmussen Reports (opinion polling)

XIII.  TEACH YOURSELF

    DIY U (subtitle: "Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education")
    Khan Academy -- over 2600 short instructional videos (mostly) on math and science topics; founder Sal Khan counts Bill Gates among his many fans

    Academic Earth -- "thousands of video lectures from the world's top scholars" at Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Yale
    University Channel -- a Princeton-led consortium "makes videos of academic lectures and events from all over the world available to the public."
    Research Channel -- University of Washington-led organization that connects a global audience with more than 50 research and academic institutions.
    Fora TV -- Ambitious new video site "delivers discourse, discussions and debates on the world's most interesting political, social and cultural issues, and enables viewers to join the conversation."
    Big Think -- "a global forum connecting people and ideas"
    Big Questions Online -- from the Templeton Foundation

    Blog: The Do It Yourself Scholar

    Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson --Hoover Institution/National Review video)

    The Teaching Company -- "the joy of lifelong learning every day"
    MindPicinic -- do-it-yourself online courses