Nock, Nock. Albert Jay's Here.

Albert Jay Nock's The Book of Journeyman has been added to the Mises Institute's very impressive archive of full-text books of libertarian and/or Austrian economic interest. Also available in Nockiana: On Doing the Right Thing, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, Jefferson, and Our Enemy, The State.

While Nock's patrician disregard for the trappings of modernity might mean he'd be unimpressed by these techno-miracles, I can only say it adds immensely to the humane enjoyment of any of our lives to be able to contemplate, pretty much costlessly and from anywhere, Nock's joyously supple prose and fascinating proto-libertarian insights. Paul Palmer, a post-Mencken (who also adored Nock) editor of the American Mercury, said that he was "the greatest stylist among American writers…no American ever wrote a purer prose."

Albert Jay Nock is one of the many characters who just absolutely come to life in my forthcoming book, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement. Just sayin'.