Crisis and Leviathan

Praise

“Crisis and Leviathan is a book of major importance, thoroughly researched, closely argued, and meticulously documented. It should be high on the reading list of every serious student of the American political system.”
—Political Science Quarterly

“Crisis and Leviathan is an important, powerful, and profoundly disturbing book.”
—James M. Buchanan, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, Journal of Economic History

“By focusing on certain critical episodes in American history, Robert Higgs has documented the remarkable and alarming growth of Big Government. His ambitious work covers the subject in great detail and in a way that will appeal to both scholars and a more general audience. . . . The conclusion of Higgs’s analysis is a thoughtful but disturbing view of American prospects. Whether traditional constitutional restraints or the unique operation of a mixed economy can avert what he and others fear as a march into socialism or fascism no one knows. As we consider the future, Higgs offers enlightenment if not optimism.”
—Arthur A. Ekirch, Jr., Professor of History, State University of New York, Albany

“Insightful, compelling, and clear, Higgs breaks new ground in explicating the most important socio-political trend of our time—the growth of American government.”
—The Freeman

“What is most exciting and intriguing about Crisis and Leviathan is that Higgs is now working within the tradition of economic history exemplified by Schumpeter and Polanyi. Like them, and unlike the new economic historians, Higgs refuses to treat political, cultural, or ideological aspects of historical reality as irrelevant to the study of economic development.”
—Reviews in American History

“Crisis and Leviathan is a thoughtful and challenging work.”
—Harper’s Magazine

“How big government gets that way: It takes over new turf in time of crisis, then hangs on to much of it after the crisis is over.”
—Fortune

“In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, everyone should read Robert Higgs’s economic classic Crisis and Leviathan. The critical warning of this masterpiece is that government always uses a crisis—from the Civil War, to the Great Depression, to World War II—to expand power, not just during the emergency, but afterward as well. Emergencies tend to ratchet up the cost and power of government permanently. That expansion of government authority is especially unwise now given that when this coronavirus fiasco is finally over, it may go down in history as one of the great government screw-ups in American history. That’s saying a lot.”
—Stephen J. Moore, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Project for Economic Growth, Institute for Economic Freedom and Opportunity, Heritage Foundation

“That big government grew from crises is not a new idea, but just how that happened is an astounding story, and the superb account that Higgs gives of that process may come as something of a shock to his readers.”
—Jonathan R. T. Hughes, Professor of Economics, Northwestern University

“Crisis and Leviathan is a blockbuster of a book, one of the most important of the last decade. It is that wondrous and rare combination: scholarly and hard-hitting, lucid and libertarian as well.”
—Liberty

“Robert Higgs is a first-rate economist and economic historian who sets out a provocative thesis—namely, that governments exploit crises (real and fabricated) as excuses to grow and to strip people of their wealth and liberties. In Crisis and Leviathan, Higgs skillfully and carefully tests this thesis against history. The thesis stands. Governments do indeed exploit crises as opportunities to confiscate ever-greater powers. After each crisis, the amount of power recently added to government’s stock might shrink somewhat, but very seldom back to what it was prior to the crisis. This is one of the most important and compelling books published during the 1980s.”
—Donald J. Boudreaux, Professor of Economics, George Mason University

“A superb history. . . . I can think of no more important reading than Crisis and Leviathan, aside from the Constitution itself.”
—The American Spectator

“The most masterful and persuasive treatment of the role of war in making big government bigger and liberty less secure is Robert Higgs’s book, Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government. Times of crisis, including economic depressions but mainly wars, give governments license to invoke numerous emergency powers. After the crisis or war is over government power recedes somewhat, but never to its previous, more limited size or scope.”
—Orange County Register

“Crisis and Leviathan is a blockbuster of a book, one of the most important of the last decade. It is that rare and wondrous combination: scholarly and hard-hitting, lucidly written and libertarian as well. To Professor Higgs, being thorough and erudite does not mean timorously qualifying every statement, or torpidly and “judiciously” picking one’s way through the minefields of ideology. Higgs’s depth and breadth of learning has only intensified his commitment to truth, liberty, and the identification its enemies. Robert Higgs, a noted economic historian, set about to answer a longstanding and vital question: why has the State grown so ominously in power in the United States during the 20th century? Why did we begin as a quasi-laissez-faire country in the 19th century and end up in our current mess? What were the processes of change? . . . One great accomplishment of Professor Higgs is to vindicate the role of ideas in history; more specifically, the role of ideology in bringing about statism in the 20th century. He has rescued the discipline of economic history from the Chicago variant of economic determinism. But this is scarcely all. For in virtually every free-market economist of our time, there is one great big hole, one big gap in his critique of statism: war. War is sacrosanct, considered necessary, inevitable, and good; and so while free-market economists will devote a great deal of energy to the evils of government intervention in oil, or forestry, or the retail trade, there is little or nothing said about the horrors and distortions imposed by the Pentagon and the war-making Leviathan State. In Crisis and Leviathan, Higgs identifies war as the critical key to the growth of statism, making his achievement all the more remarkable. . . . Not the least of the joys of Crisis and Leviathan is the love of liberty and the hatred of its enemies that shines through the scholarly apparatus of the book. . . . What a treasure, then, when an erudite scholar and distinguished economic historian such as Robert Higgs, conveys a passionate intensity in favor of liberty and against the depredations of the State! . . . We live in an age of outrageous hype, when publishers and book dealers tout every other book in print as “the greatest of all time.” So what are we to do when a book of genuine greatness comes along? I say this about very few books: make this your top priority this year; rush out and read the book. And then proclaim it throughout the land.”
—Murray N. Rothbard, late S.J. Hall Distinguished Professor of Economics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas