Portraits of Liberty Podcast
1) Benjamin Franklin: A Versatile Genius, with Guest Mark Skousen
In this episode, economist and historian Mark Skousen joins us to discuss his latest book, The Greatest American: Benjamin Franklin, The World's Most Versatile Genius. Skousen highlights Franklin’s re...Show More
2) Joseph Hiam Levy: A Forgotten Radical for Liberty, with guest Matt Zwolinski
J.H. Levy was a prominent but now largely forgotten voice in the individualist intellectual circles of Victorian Britain, known for his passionate defense of self-ownership and voluntary social cooper...Show More
3) Liberty With an Asterisk: Black Americans In the Revolution Era
In this podcast, we revisit the lives of Elizabeth Freeman, Lemuel Haynes, and James Forten, three Black Americans who lived through the contradictions of the Revolutionary era and helped expand its i...Show More
4) The Father of Abolitionism: John Rankin (With Caleb Franz)
An episode interviewing Caleb Franz covering the life of the abolitionist minister John Rankin. From his hilltop home in Ripley, Ohio, Rankin established a safe haven for enslaved people crossing...Show More
5) How Self-Interest Built Societies: Bernard Mandeville
This episode explores the provocative work of Bernard Mandeville, who argued that everything from commerce to civilization itself emerged not from altruism, but from self-interest, vanity, and competi...Show More
6) Shyamji Krishna Varma: A Spencerian Radical
Drawing from Hebert Spencer, Shyamji Krishna Varma, an Indian revolutionary and journalist, challenged British colonial rule. From his rise as a Sanskrit scholar to his establishment of India House an...Show More
7) Jeannette Rankin: The Peaceful Outlier
Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress, remains one of the most principled pacifists in American political history. She was a vocal opponent of US intervention in European affairs in Wo...Show More
8) Olaudah Equiano: The Man Who Transformed the Abolitionist Movement
Born in west Africa and kidnapped into slavery at age eleven, Olaudah Equiano endured the horrors of the Middle Passage before being sold to British and American masters. As an enslaved seaman, he tra...Show More
9) Revisiting Frédéric Bastiat
From his critique of state-controlled education in “Baccalaureate and Socialism,” to his extensive correspondence with free-trade advocate Richard Cobden, to his independent political career in a tumu...Show More
10) The Father of the School of Salamanca: Francisco de Vitoria
The 16th-century Dominican theologian Francisco de Vitoria has been hailed as the father of international law. Vitoria's teachings at the University of Salamanca shaped the foundation of modern natura...Show More