Bastiat asserted that the only purpose of government is to defend the right of an individual to life, liberty, and property. From this definition, Bastiat concluded that the law cannot defend life, liberty and property if it promotes socialist policies inherently opposed to these very things. In this way, he says, the law is perverted and turned against the thing it is supposed to defend.

"To rob the public, it is necessary to deceive them," Bastiat said and believed. He reasoned, employing repetition to various applications, against fallacious arguments promoting the "Protection" of industries to the detriment of consumers and society. (Introduction by Katie Riley)

"The law perverted! The law—and, in its wake, all the collective forces of the nation. The law, I say, not only diverted from its proper direction, but made to pursue one entirely contrary! The law becomes the tool of every kind of avarice, instead of being its check! The law guilty of that very inequity which it was its mission to punish! Truly, this is a serious fact, if it exists, and one to which I feel bound to call the attention of my fellow-citizens." —Frédéric Bastiat

Frederic Taber Cooper, who was an editor and author, provides a superb insight into the works of some of the most popular authors of the turn of the century decade. Excerpt: The subjects of the essays included in this volume differ widely in aim and in accomplishment; but all of them possess, to a considerable extent, the gift that makes them next of kin to the minstrel and troubadour, to the ancient fabulist, and to the forgotten spinner of the world s first nursery tales, the gift of holding the attention by the spell of the spoken word. - Summary by Celine Major

"Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War" is an interesting read of the beginnings of air warfare in World War I. Anyone interested in early aviation and armament will find this a fascinating work. By William Tomcho.

The history of Greek athletics as it pertains to the Olympics. Describes various activities such as boxing, wrestling, etc. and accounts from witnesses, the Iliad, etc. as they pertain to famous Greeks and events. He discusses Greek views of physical appearance and fitness as they pertain to the games and society and also how and why individual city-states chose to participate in the Olympics.

This is not a manual of instruction for orchid growers; though there are many hints on cultivation, and a few paragraphs on how to hybridize. The author is just an enthusiastic amateur orchid lover. He takes the reader on a wander through the dangers and consequences of hunting orchids in the tropical jungles of the nineteenth century, and chats about the extreme peculiarities of orchid growth, behaviour and structure, colouring the essays with his own experiences and with his delight in cultivating these beautiful plants. Beware! A new hobby beckons!

Published in 1911 as part of the "Harper's Library of Living Thought," this volume presents an introduction to the chemistry of cells in the context of plant physiology and gives an interesting overview of the field of biochemistry and related sciences at the time. The author, Frederick Czapek, was a Czech botanist and professor of Plant Physiology at the University of Prague. He is perhaps best known for his two-volume work on Plant Physiology, "Biochemie der Pflanzen" and for Czapek solution agar or Czapek-Dox medium, a culture medium for cultivation of fungus species such as Aspergillus and Penicillium molds. (

Delightful sketches of British wild birds – a bird for every month of the year from the pheasant in January to the robin in December. This collection of articles, reprinted in book form from the periodical The Outlook, is full of fascinating information about bird behaviour and habitat, as well as many interesting anecdotes. Out of date in some respects, particularly in its reference to the (now illegal) collecting of birds’ eggs, this book brings home forcefully how the populations of some British wild birds have declined since it was written.

Arnold and Frost were English archaeologists who traveled to the Yucatan Peninsula and wrote "the first book ever written by Englishmen on Yucatan—that Egypt of the New World, where, it is now generally admitted, Central American Civilisation reached its apogee—and to be, for the present at least, the only Englishmen who can claim to have explored the uncivilised north-eastern portions of the Peninsula and the islands of her eastern coast." Their studies brought them to the conclusion, contrary to the bulk of the body of other contemporary experts, "that America's first architects were Buddhist immigrants from Java and Indo-China."

In 1884, Professor Treves saw Joseph Merrick in a shop across the road from the London Hospital. Being also a teacher at the University, he brought Merrick to the London Hospital as a teaching case, and Merrick lived there until his death in April 1890. This book of "reminiscences" includes the story of the "Elephant Man" as well as other interesting cases from Sir Treves' practice as a doctor.

Everything about the sea: history of ships, famous mariners and life on shipboard, adventure, shipwrecks and daring rescues. - Summary by Kikisaulite

Father Frederick William Faber was a beloved spiritual writer, preacher, and superior of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in London. An Oxford scholar and Anglican priest since 1839, Faber converted to Roman Catholicism in 1845 following his mentor John Henry (later Cardinal) Newman. During the 1850s, Father Faber published several popular spiritual books, which have been treasured by Catholics ever since: All for Jesus, Growth in Holiness, The Blessed Sacrament, The Creator and the Creature, The Foot of the Cross, Spiritual Conferences, The Precious Blood, and Bethlehem...

Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship "Fram", 1893-96 and of a Fifteen Months' Sleigh Journey by Dr. Nansen and Lieut. Johansen / by Fridtjof Nansen; with an Appendix by Otto Sverdrup

The Christian Book of Concord was published in 1580 as a collection of eleven documents: Three Ecumenical Creeds and eight documents from the Reformation Era. Here is the Preface to the entire work together with the Saxon Visitation Articles from 1592.

The main idea of "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" (1880) was distinguishing scientific socialism and utopian socialism. Engels begins by chronicaling the thought of utopian socialists, starting with Saint-Simon. He then proceeds to Fourier and Robert Owen. In chapter two, he summarizes dialectics, and then chronicles the thought from the ancient Greeks to Hegel. Chapter three summarizes dialectics in relation to economic and social struggles, essentially echoing the words of Marx.

This is Engels' first book (since considered a classic account of England's working class in the industrial age), which argues that workers paid a heavy price for the industrial revolution that swept the country. Engels wrote the piece while staying in Manchester from 1842 to 1844, based on th bohis observations and several contemporary reports conducted over the period.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. His name is one of the most recognizable names in history and one of the most enduring of composers. At age 5, this “wunderkinder” took to the stage and began his life as a prolific and celebrated creator-genius of such luminous works the world has not known since. This collection of morsels taken from his personal letters is engaging and gives a look into the mind of the boy wonder. Was he mad? Was he miraculous?

Of The Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche says in Ecce Homo: “If anyone should desire to obtain a rapid sketch of how everything before my time was standing on its head, he should begin reading me in this book. That which is called ‘Idols’ on the title-page is simply the old truth that has been believed in hitherto. In plain English, The Twilight of the Idols means that the old truth is on its last legs.” Certain it is that, for a rapid survey of the whole of Nietzsche’s doctrine, no book, save perhaps the section entitled “Of Old and New Tables” in Thus Spake Zarathustra, could be of more real value than The Twilight of the Idols...

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s autobiography, Ecce Homo, was the last prose work that he wrote before his illness in 1889. Coming at the end of an extraordinarily productive year in which he had produced The Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist, Nietzsche shuns any pretense at modesty with chapter titles include “Why I am so Wise”, “Why I am so Clever” and “Why I Write Such Excellent Books”. His translator Anthony M. Ludovici states, Ecce Homo “is not only a coping-stone...

The History of the Thirty Years War is a five volume work, which followed his very successful History of the Revolt of the Netherlands. Written for a wider audience than Revolt, it is a vivid history, colored by Schiller’s own interest in the question of human freedom and his rationalist optimism. Volume 1 covers the background of the war, through the Battle of Prague in late 1620. (Introduction by Alan Winterrowd)

This book talks about teaching, learning and performing on the piano in a delightful style, alternating between conversation and instruction. As he was the father of Clara Schumann and Robert Schumann's teacher, need I say more?

More commonly know as "The Blue Book" written by "Baron von Steuben" this publication was key to organizing the young American military in the Revolutionary War with England. This book served both as a regulation and a how-to manual. Each officer was required to: purchase a copy upon being commissioned, carry it at all times, read it, and use it.