In 1716, pirates regularly declared war on all nation-states, they tested the extreme limits of life and death, and quite literally challenged God to dare pass judgment over an angry pirate. If the Lord knew what was good for him, he would mind his own damned business and move along. A true pirate had no home but Hell. Further Readings/References: “The Legend of Libertalia” on Libertarianism.org Captain Charles John, A General History of the Pirates, Volume One and Volume Two Rediker, Marcus. Vi...
Aug 22, 2017•20 min
Each new generation has the ability to dramatically improve upon their world. Neil Howe challenges us to think generationally. Neil Howe wondered why Boomers were so different from their GI elders. In the late 1980s, he developed an intricate yet broad theory of generational change. His model has been very influential, inspiring figures from Al Gore to Glenn Beck and Steve Bannon. Neil Howe joins us on Liberty Chronicles to talk cycles, generations, and the myth-making business of history. Hoste...
Aug 15, 2017•41 min
In his 1743 memoir, “The Infortunate,” Moraley detailed his sad circumstances and vague notions of bettering them in the Americas. In what appeared to him a chance encounter, an unknown man encouraged this flight of fancy and signaled that he would join William in Pennsylvania. After plying young Moraley with pints and sweet stories about American abundance, the two prepared and signed William’s indenture contract of five years. Once aboard ship, the recruiter disappeared to lull another fool in...
Aug 08, 2017•23 min
The Salem trials were largely the result of a combination of personal animus, avarice, and cruelty within a deeply occultist culture. New England courts executed nineteen witches and subjected many repented convicts to purifying torture. One thing only ended the feverish trials: accusers gradually turned on the affluent and influential after using up the easier targets of marginalized and poor women. Further Readings/References: Godwin’s Lives of the Necromancers series Godwin’s chapter on Salem...
Aug 01, 2017•23 min
By the mid-1630s, the English and Native populations were roughly equal in number and power. Parity meant all sides had a practical interest in peaceful coexistence, at least in the real experiences of daily life. The first generation of settlers could show little more force than occasional raids on Indian villages, burning the cornfield here and there, and other small-scale acts of violence. Waves of new settlers throughout the 1630s tipped the frontier balance of power toward the Puritans. Joh...
Jul 25, 2017•21 min
Few contemporary or historical accounts of Bacon’s rebellion agree in every particular about the movement’s motivations and outcomes. For the Jacksonian Democrat, George Bancroft, Virginians had enjoyed free government for three generations on the edge of the wilderness. For Bancroft and nationalist historians, this was the prelude to the American Revolution—it was the people seizing their government, its policy-making apparatus, and its legitimacy so that the popular interest might once again g...
Jul 18, 2017•21 min
The Antinomians did not just push for religious and political freedoms in the American colonies. Their ideas traversed the Atlantic and influenced groups in Britain, as well. During the upheaval of the English Civil War, the British Antinomians seized the opportunity to shape their world, creating a slew of new religious denominations and fighting for their liberty. Rediker & Linebaugh. Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic. Boston: Beacon Press. 2000. Woodhouse...
Jul 11, 2017•21 min
True radicals who would actually live and let live have been in short supply since Bradford destroyed Morton’s maypole and the Puritan divines banished Anne Hutchinson. The Trial of Anne Hutchinson (1637), Transcript Thomas Morton’s Observations of the Puritans Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 04, 2017•22 min
Peter Linebaugh received a PhD in Early Modern British history from the University of Warwick in 1974, where he studied under EP Thompson, one of the most important and influential historians of the 20th century. Linebaugh is the author of a good many hugely important articles and books, among which are The London Hanged , Magna Carta Manifesto , and Stop Thief! Linebaugh is also the co-author of The Many-Headed Hydra . Further Readings/References: Thomas Morton’s Mayday Morton’s “New World Bacc...
Jun 27, 2017•31 min
On July 25, 1609, aboard the Virginia Company’s slowing sinking ship the Sea Venture, a company of colonial gentlemen-adventurers, indentured servants, and sailors, all struggled for their lives. The crew plugged holes and splits with every available means and everyone —even the genteel and lordly—took turns carrying water for a time. Aboard the Sea Venture, circumstances forced rich and poor alike to join their labors in common cause and solidarity. The aqueous environment—agitated by catastrop...
Jun 20, 2017•28 min
We have the ability to readily appreciate this transition and its impact on overall economic productivity. We live in a vastly richer world than has ever existed before and every one of us above the bare level of subsistence lives incomparably better than kings, emperors, and the wealthiest elites even just a century ago. But in many ways, medieval life was stolen from people during the fledgling days of Early Modernity, and libertarians—rather than wholesale ignoring or rejecting this legacy—sh...
Jun 13, 2017•22 min
When you change your perspective on past events by changing the sources of information, the facts of your narrative change as well. We have some decent tools to guide our exploration of the past, so let’s start digging. Further Readings/References: The First Charter of Virginia; April 10, 1606 Charters to Columbus and Walter Raleigh The Dutch Path from Explorers to Monopolists Rediker & Linebaugh. Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic. Boston: Beacon Press. 2000...
Jun 06, 2017•21 min
History is the grand catalog of human action in the past. At its broadest, it encompasses everything that everyone everywhere has ever done.If all history is about individual actions, and all individual actions are based on some sort of perceived self-interest on the part of the actor, one may conclude that chronicles of an historical actor’s life would reveal patterns about how they expected to fulfill those interests. Further Readings/References: Rothbard, “The Conspiracy Theory of History, Re...
May 30, 2017•19 min
Methodological individualism is the principle that only individuals act—only individuals consciously apply means toward the fulfilment of ends. whenever we investigate society we must do so through the experiences and actions of the individuals which compose it. Further Readings/References: Mises, Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. 2005. George H. Smith & Marilyn Moore, eds. Individualism: A Reader. Washington, D.C.: The Cato I...
May 23, 2017•17 min
We overview Marxism and classical liberalism so we can get a very full picture of what produces, change over time. Further Readings/References: On Marxism, see: Marx, Karl. “A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy” (1859) from Lewis S. Feuer, ed. Marx and Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy (Garden City, NY: Anchor. 1959) On Classical Liberalism: The collected works of William Leggett are available here: https://archive.org/details/collectionofpoliwla01legg https://arch...
May 16, 2017•26 min
By studying history, though, we empower ourselves to challenge received wisdom and create knowledge of our own. Sometimes doing history from below (rather than above) is as simple as broadening the scope of your evidence beyond the relatively controllable published record. It might mean deep dives into personal diaries, letters, newspapers, pop and material culture, archeological evidence, or the introduction of a variety of methodological approaches to oft-studied subjects. Further Readings/Ref...
May 09, 2017•20 min
Welcome to the first installment of Liberty Chronicles! Everything you were taught about why the world is the way it is was planted in your mind. What does the development of the bathtub have to do with how we think about history? On first glance, it might seem to contribute very little. It is, after all, only a mundane and humble tub. Further Reading: For a history of the history of the bathtub, see: Wendy McElroy, “The Bathtub, Mencken, and War” https://fee.org/articles/the-bathtub-mencken-and...
May 02, 2017•30 min
Join host Dr. Anthony Comegna on a series of libertarian explorations into the past. Liberty Chronicles combines innovative libertarian thinking about history with specialist interviews, primary and secondary sources, and answers to listener questions. At its most useful, studying history is a sort of purgative process through which we can better understand past actors’ motivations and mistakes; we then use this wisdom to refine our own behavior as individuals. By approaching humanity’s past ‘fr...
Apr 12, 2017•2 min
