Henry Grady Weaver answers the question of why we have progressed economically and how are liberty was born and has grown over time. In this inspiring book he explains the miracle of capitalism and individual liberty. This should be required reading for everyone who aspires to "improve" mankind, for the efforts of too many are standing in the way of further progress. ( )

This is a study in economics, invention, history, and political science, but like its inspiration it fits in none of these categories. It is also a report on the American view of the value, nature and impact of individual liberty. Weaver was a businessman, an executive at General Motors. He had been impressed and transformed by reading Rose Wilder Lane’s ”The Discovery of Freedom: Man's Struggle Against Authority”, and with her permission he included an abbreviated version off that work.

He next added his own observations, primary of which was that the seeming anarchy of market competition by free men was largely responsible for the invention and industrialization of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He looks at some of the inventions and changes in society that have resulted and warns of current (1940s) changes that slow down that trend.

To fully report on the contents and ideas presented would take almost as many words as the book. I can only suggest that he (as did Wilder Lane) takes us back to prehistory; and then presents views of Moses, Christ, Muhammad, and the American founding fathers that are not usually considered. For anyone interested in the fundamental differences between America, Europe, and the rest of the world; this is a must read that reduces many complex arguments to their simplest terms. ( )

A book that asks this profound question: "For six thousand years man died of hunger, why don't we?"