Tribute to Bob Higgs

24 October 2007 at 11:30 am Peter G. Klein Leave a comment

| Peter Klein |

It was a great pleasure watching Robert Higgs accept the 2007 Schlarbaum Award for Lifetime Defense of Liberty at the Mises Institutes’s 25th Anniversary Celebration in New York. Bob is an outstanding scholar whose 1987 book, Crisis and Leviathan, should be required reading for Naomi Klein. He is a fierce defender of political and economic freedom, private property, and the rule of law. Bob also edits the Independent Review, a terrific interdisciplinary journal that values clear exposition as well as academic rigor (a rare combination, these days).

Earlier this year a group of Bob’s friends, colleagues, and former students produced a Festschrift volume, Government and the American Economy: A New History, in his honor. Contributors include Price Fishback (the editor), Gary Libecap, Stanley Engerman, Robert McGuire, Richard Sylla, John Wallis, Jeff Hummel, Robert Margo, Mark Guglielmo, Werner Troesken, Sumner La Croix, Randal Rucker, E. C. Pasour, Jr., Lee Alston, and Joseph Ferrie. The result is “a series of stimulating cameos by a distinguished assemblage of economic historians,” writes reviewer Gavin Wright (himself a distinguished economic historian). Check it out!