The Reading Room

The OLL blog explores the fascinating, vital, and often surprising texts and people that fill our library. Come talk in our library!

Welcome Home, Quasimodo! A Tale of Two Notre Dames

By: Walter Donway

Setting: Present-day Notre Dame Cathedral. It is nightfall.
The great, long-silent bells toll, their resonant voices echoing across the Paris sky. Now, a lone figure moves among the towering spires, the freshly restored stonework, and the air is thick with history, with memories. Quasimodo, resident spirit and eternal guardian of the Cathedral, has come home.
MORE

OLL’s February Birthday: Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. (February 26, 1671 - February 4, 1713)

By: Peter Carl Mentzel

February’s OLL Birthday essay is dedicated to Anthony Ashley Cooper, better known to history as the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, or sometimes just Shaftesbury. He was an important statesman and Whig politician during the turbulent…
MORE

The Logic of Desire: From Homer’s Odyssey to Alice in Wonderland

By: Alexander Schmid

While one idly day-dreams, one frequently imagines how the world and all within it might be different. What if the clouds were red? What if I won a million dollars, tax-free? What if I did not have to wake up at 5 a.m. during the…
MORE

Liberalism in The True Believer

By: Janet Bufton

In November, Liberty Fund hosted a virtual reading group on Eric Hoffer's short book, The True Believer. 
One topic of discussion was Hoffer's conservatism, which is implicit to his theories of mass movements. One place it’s…
MORE

Careless People in the Great American Novel

By: Harrison Layman

The Great Gatsby ends on a sad note. The book's namesake, Gatsby, lies dead in a pool. He experiences a second death when his funeral is sparsely attended. The house that was so full when he was alive lies empty in his death. George…
MORE

Rousseau Dissents from the Modern World

By: Walter Donway

“I ask: which of the two, civil or natural life, is more likely to become insufferable to those who live it? We see about us practically no people who do not complain about their existence...[but] has anyone ever heard of a savage…
MORE

To Exonerate God, Rousseau Must Make Man Depraved

By: Walter Donway

Professor Alan Kors explains that the young Rousseau did not trust the Paris philosophes. He met with them in the cafes but did not like their deism. He had known and argued with atheists. The philosophes seemed to him to seize upon…
MORE

OLL’s November Birthday: Voltaire (November 21, 1694 – May 30, 1778)

By: Peter Carl Mentzel

November’s OLL Birthday Essay is in honor of François Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire.  A playwright, poet, historian, philosopher, and satirist, Voltaire literally defined the Age of Enlightenment,…
MORE

Utilitarianism: Pleasure or Preference?

By: Bill Glod

Spend much time in discussion of ethics and you’ll likely hear standard objections to various utilitarian theories. In their single-minded drive to maximize some version of the good (e.g., desirable conscious states like pleasure),…
MORE

A Critique of Preferentism

By: Bill Glod

A previous essay suggested ways in which preference-satisfaction utilitarianism (“preferentism”) is superior to forms of utilitarianism that focus on promoting or maximizing desirable states of consciousness (such as pleasure).…
MORE

OLL’s October Birthday: Denis Diderot (October 5, 1713 – July 31, 1784)

By: Peter Carl Mentzel

October’s OLL Birthday Essay is in honor of the French polymath Denis Diderot.  Most famous as the editor and inspiration of the Encyclopédie, Diderot also published works on philosophy and art, as well as novels, and plays,…
MORE

Ilia Chavchavadze on Adam Smith, Free Trade, and the Future of the United States

By: Irakli Javakhishvili

In a previous article, we have already talked about the views of the founder of Georgian liberal thought, Prince Ilia Chavchavadze, on private property. It should be noted that his reviews were not limited to only internal issues;…
MORE

Anne Dowriche: War, Treason and Shakespeare.

By: Joanne Paul

Thirty years into the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a small book appeared in the London market. The frontispiece identified it as ‘The French Historie’ and noted that it was ‘published by A. D.’. Only when the reader perused the…
MORE
The Reading Room Archives

Reading Room Contributors

Walter Donway

Walter Donway

Peter Carl Mentzel

Peter Carl Mentzel

Alexander Schmid

Alexander Schmid

Janet Bufton

Janet Bufton

Harrison Layman

Harrison Layman