Before we can change the world, we need to understand it. This book helps towards that understanding. It explains the nature of the enemy and how it has so far carried all before it. And it outlines a set of strategies for the comprehensive defeat of that enemy.
Every battle fought so far for liberal democracy has been lost. Even so, the war remains uncertain.
“As you gather, this is stirring stuff. It is very well written and puts its case cogently. You should make it your holiday reading, and come back with renewed determination to change things.”
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Hampden Press, London, 2011, 204pp
ISBN: 9781447757726
The “War against Tobacco” is one of the central facts of modern life. In this book, Sean Gabb analyses the nature and progress of the “war”. The stated reasons for the war have varied according to time and place.
According to Dr Gabb, however, all reasons have one thing in common—they rest on a base of lies and half truths. But this is not simply a book about the history of tobacco and the scientific debate on its dangers. It also examines why, given the status of the evidence against it, there is a war against tobacco. Dr Gabb shows that this war is part of a much larger project of lifestyle regulation by the ruling class, and that its function is to provide a set of plausible excuses for the extraction of resources from the people and for the exercise of power over them.
This book provides a kind of “unified field” theory to bring within a single explanatory structure some of the most important attacks on free choice and government limitation that we face today.
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Hampden Press, London, 2011, 183pp
ISBN: 9781447817284
Why bother learning Latin? How did the Romans pronounce Greek? Should the Elgin Marbles be handed over to the Modern Greeks? Did the ancients have market economies? Should Epicurus be venerated above Plato and Aristotle? Why is Carol Ann Duffy not even a bad poet? What makes Macaulay a great historian and L. Neil Smith a great science fiction novelist? Why is The Daily Mail—easily the best newspaper in England—not fit for wrapping fish and chips?
Sean Gabb deals with these and other issues in this collection of essays. Lively and provocative, they are written for every lover of ancient or modern literature.
“Libertarians have sound ideas but are not always great writers, and are not usually authorities on literature and literary matters. Rarer still is the literary essayist who is not confused or ignorant about politics and economics. It is thus refreshing to encounter Sean Gabb’s literary writing. A long-time libertarian activist and writer who is also a superb novelist and literary essayist, an honest and clear writer, he is our modern libertarian man of letters. This splendid and sparkling collection of essays provides fascinating insights into literature and other literary topics, without the typical leftist baggage and economic illiteracy.”
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Hampden Press, London, 2013, 200pp
ISBN: 9781291545692
We live in a world where Lady Chatterley’s Lover is an A Level text, and where documentaries about oral sex are shown on television. Even so, the battle for freedom of speech has not been won. More fiercely than ever in England, it rages on other fronts. There are panics over the promotion of terrorism, and the alleged sexualisation of children. The feminists have taken up the demand for sexual puritanism even before the churches can fully lay it aside.
Above all, there is the official war on “hate.” In the name of good community relations, or simply to protect minorities from being upset, whole areas of debate that once were free are now policed. Dissidents risk punishments that range between formal imprisonment and unemployability.
In this set of forthright, and often very controversial, essays, Sean Gabb puts the old case for freedom of speech in the changed circumstances of today. His subjects include holocaust denial, the possession of child pornography, the rights of BNP members, and the persecution of Emma West, the South London “Tram Lady.”
“Libertarians can perform no greater service to freedom and humanity than by coming to the defense of the indefensible. The greatest victories for liberty have been won by those who would champion the rights of the outcast and despised rather than the popular or sympathetic…. In past eras, authoritarian rulers and censors who would seek to destroy liberty did so in the name of protecting society from religious heretics. In the modern world, the authoritarians and censors have not gone away. They have simply reinvented themselves as righteous crusaders against pornography or racism. Dr. Gabb’s book brilliantly exposes the contemporary Inquisition for what it is.”
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Hampden Press, London, 2005, 158pp
ISBN: 9780954103231
British involvement in the war against Iraq may have been a crime: it was certainly a mistake. It advanced no British interest. It has instead caused thousands of deaths, and destabilised the Middle East, and has brought this country into various degrees throughout the world of hatred and ridicule. To say this, one does not need to be a socialist, or an internationalist, or in any sense disloyal to Queen and country. Opposition to the war is the most natural response of any conservative or libertarian.
So argues Sean Gabb in his latest book. Made up of essays written between September 2001 and May 2004, it can be read as a running commentary on the war with Iraq It may also be read as a sustained argument that the only legitimate foreign policy for the British Government is one that preserves the ability of the people of the United Kingdom to go safely about their everyday business. Such a policy need not be simple or direct, but it must credibly relate to this end.
Perhaps the only benefit this war has brought the country is the destruction of Tony Blair as a credible political figure. But great as it may be, can this be justified in terms of the suffering inflicted on others?
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Hodder & Stoughton, London