LESSONS FROM THE POOR: Triumph of the Entrepreneurial Spirit
Edited by Alvaro Vargas Llosa

Half the people in the world live on two dollars or less per day and roughly 600 million live on no more than one dollar per day. With thousands of international relief organizations, strategic government programs, and billions of dollars in foreign aid, why do so many underdeveloped countries remain unable to grow their economies beyond mere survival?

It is this issue that internationally acclaimed political analyst Alvaro Vargas Llosa and a select group of economists examine in a series of case studies from around the world. These studies reveal that entrepreneurial energy can be a persistent catalyst for change. But unfortunately in societies dominated by political corruption and unnecessary regulation, men and women seeking to innovate must hurdle a series of challenges. Wealth transfer, favoritism, excessive taxation, and lack of institutional security all conspire against progress. Our contributors examine real world examples of entrepreneurship and argue that instead of redistributing existing wealth, developing countries should start working to create it.

THE FOUNDERS’ SECOND AMENDMENT: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms
By Stephen P. Halbrook

After decades of silence on the Second Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court is presiding over the District of Columbia vs. Heller. At issue, as attorney and Independent Institute Research Fellow Stephen P. Halbrook explains in his new book The Founders’ Second Amendment, is whether or not the Second Amendment protects a private citizen’s right to keep and bear arms. While much has been written about gun control and related issues, no book has delved so deeply into the nature of the right to keep and bear arms as it was understood and practiced during the first generation of the American Republic. Stephen Halbrook captures the intent of the Founders in their own words to reveal that the Second Amendment was indeed designed to protect the individual’s rights.

Stephen P. Halbrook is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and the author of several books on gun control. An attorney with a private practice in Fairfax, VA, he received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and his Ph.D. in social philosophy from Florida State University. Having won three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, he has most recently filed an Amici Curiae Brief in District of Columbia vs. Heller on behalf of 300 members of Congress.