Dedra Birzer is a lecturer in history at Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan. She is currently under contract for a book on Rose Wilder Lane and her cohort of public intellectual women. She has written entries for a number of specialized encyclopedias in print and online, including The Black Past, the New Catholic Encyclopedia, and Dictionary of American Biography.

Bradley Birzer is a professor of history and the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies at Hillsdale College. His books include Russell Kirk: American Conservative, American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll, and J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle Earth.

Jonathan Bean is a professor of history at Southern Illinois University and a research fellow of the Independent Institute. He is the author of Beyond the Broker State: Federal Policies Toward Small Business, 1936-1961 and Big Government and Affirmative Action: The Scandalous History of the Small Business Administration, and editor of Race and History in America: The Essential Reader.

Hunt Tooley is Professor of History and Chair of the History Department at Austin College in Sherman, Texas. He specializes in Modern European History and is the author of Western Front: Battleground and Home Front in the First World War and National Identity and Weimar Germany.

G.P. Manish is a professor of economics in the Sorrell College of Business at Troy University and a member of the University's Manuel H. Johnson Center of Political Economy. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Suffolk University.

Gerard Casey is Professor Emeritus in the School of Philosophy at University College Dublin. His books include Natural Reason, Murray Rothbard, and Libertarian Anarchy.

Jeffrey M. Herbener is chairman of the department of economics at Grove City College, associate editor of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, and editor of The Meaning of Ludwig von Mises.

Brion McClanahan is the author of The Founding Fathers' Guide to the Constitution and The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers.

Robert Murphy is a Research Assistant Professor at the Free Market Institute (FMI) at Texas Tech University, and, along with Tom Woods, co-host of the weekly podcast, Contra Krugman.

Kevin R.C. Gutzman is the New York Times bestselling author of James Madison and the Making of America, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution, Who Killed the Constitution? (with Thomas Woods), and Virginia's American Revolution. He is chairman of the department of history at Western Connecticut State University.

Thomas E. Woods, Jr., is the New York Times bestselling author of 12 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, Meltdown (on the financial crisis, featuring a foreword by Ron Paul), 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask, and Real Dissent: A Libertarian Sets Fire to the Index Card of Allowable Opinion. Click here to read more Woods’ writing has appeared in dozens of popular and scholarly periodicals, including the American Historical Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Modern Age, American Studies, New Oxford Review, and Independent Review. He is the winner of numerous awards and prizes, including first prize in the Templeton Enterprise Awards, the O.P. Alford III Prize for Libertarian Scholarship, an Olive W. Garvey Fellowship from the Independent Institute, and a Claude R. Lambe Fellowship from George Mason University. A senior fellow of the Mises Institute, Woods has appeared on CNBC, MSNBC, FOX News Channel, FOX Business Network, C-SPAN, and Bloomberg Television, among other outlets. He has been a guest on hundreds of radio programs including National Public Radio, the Dennis Miller Show, the Michael Reagan Show, and the Michael Medved Show. Woods holds a bachelor's degree in history from Harvard and his master's and Ph.D. in history from Columbia University.

Dear Libertarian Friend:

Decades ago, when I was young and in college, and just starting my journey into the world of libertarian thought in earnest, I ate most of my meals in the campus cafeteria.

Every night after dinner, I’d walk out the front door smack into a crowd of radical students distributing a communist newspaper. I'm not kidding: hammer and sickle and everything.

When they tried to talk me into taking a copy, I refused and explained I was a free-marketeer, which invariably started a heated argument.

I have to confess that I didn’t always cover myself with glory when defending free market thinking.

You see, I was pretty sure the free market was the best way for society to be arranged. But I didn’t always have the facts, figures, and logical arguments to back it up.

Today, that’s all different.

For instance, at a cocktail party, a leftist and I got into a verbal dust-up when he insisted that socialism was the moral approach to government because it helps the poor, while capitalism helps only the rich.

Instead of trying to frame my argument on the fly, I defended the free market with well-thought-out rationales I have acquired through decades of studying and writing about libertarian thought and capitalism.

“In a market economy, producers earn and keep profits, which they use to buy equipment and hire workers, enabling them to produce in much greater quantities at lower cost,” I explained to my leftist opponent.

“People’s real incomes rise, and they become better off, because the economy becomes physically capable of producing in greater and greater abundance at ever lower costs, and the benefit of this greater abundance is lower prices, increasing consumer buying power.”

By the way, this is precisely what happened during the 19th and 20th centuries: People at the end of the last century had to work far less than those at the beginning of the 1900s to earn the necessary purchasing power to buy a wide range of important consumer goods. And this is why the poorest suffer the fewest deprivations in the world’s most market-friendly societies.

With his leftist worldview dismantled in about 120 seconds, my verbal sparring partner left without a comeback and walked off in a huff. That always gives me tremendous satisfaction.

I’m Tom Woods. I am the best-selling author of 12 books on libertarianism and free-market economics, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. See my bio at left for more details.

I have spent literally tens of thousands of dollars and more than a decade acquiring degrees in history, including a bachelor's from Harvard and Ph.D. from Columbia, and have dedicated my life to defending free-market thought and teaching it to others.

But I realize most people don’t have the time, funds, or inclination to devote almost a decade of their lives to school and study like I did. And so I found the perfect solution – an online resource that can give you the equivalent of a doctoral degree in libertarian philosophy, politics, and economics in months or even weeks instead of years.

With this new knowledge, you can master the facts and arguments behind the libertarian ideas you hold dear, so you can persuade your critics of the correctness of your position. And you can get this free-market education online, without leaving your home, for just 24 cents a day! Introducing….

Liberty Classroom: the premiere online “university” of libertarian thought that you can “attend” while sitting at your PC or driving in your car.

Liberty Classroom is one of the largest and most expertly researched and written collections of audio and video lessons and lectures on libertarian ideas and free-market economics available anywhere in the world today.

Listening to the audios and watching the videos will load you up with the facts, figures, and other ammunition you need to feel supremely confident … and come out on top … when arguing politics or economics with yet another devoted leftist or socialist – and even with neoconservatives, who make their own share of mistakes.

Now you’ll have the knowledge to clearly articulate the central political and economic issues of libertarianism. Including:

The free market and monopolies. Your high school teacher probably told you that the 19th-century American economy was shot through with monopolies, thanks to the free market, and that only government intervention was able to reverse the process. I was taught this, too. But it's bunk, and we'll give you the real story.

Was the Great Depression a case of the free market run wild? That’s what we learned in school, but it’s not true at all. At Liberty Classroom we teach you about the Federal Reserve System – ignored in nearly all classroom discussions of the coming of the Depression – and explain what really caused the crash.

Has the free market led to exploitation of the environment? Of course not, but that’s what we’re all led to think. When the market is allowed to function, resources are conserved and the future is provided for. By contrast, when government doesn’t allow the market or property rights to function, resources are degraded and depleted.

Repeal of the minimum wage. These days it's fashionable to call for a $15 minimum wage, which would amount to more than a 100 percent raise for some people. Economic studies show that increases in the minimum wage don't hurt employment, left-liberals will say. But even if those “studies” weren't shot through with howlers, not one of them says a 100% increase won't hurt employment! You'll learn the real effects of the minimum wage, and you won't have to fear coming out second best in a debate.

The American Revolution: the real issue. Why Americans fought the American Revolution in defense of a principle our present federal government despises.

The presidents. Why the best presidents were the ones your teachers hated, and the worst were the ones they loved.

The problems with “liberal” interpretations of the Constitution. Virtually all schoolchildren learn that the federal government can do pretty much anything that advances the general welfare, and that an “elastic clause” grants it a wide array of unspecified powers. This argument is indefensible, and we'll arm you with ammunition against it.

In short, you’ll master logical, persuasive arguments that support the fundamental libertarian precepts of individualism, individual rights, the rule of law, limited government, free markets, the virtue of production, the natural harmony of interests, and peace.