While driving from Illinois to Iowa, ­Donald McCloskey had an epiphany. He had spent the previous night dancing at lesbian bars in Aurora and now was returning to his home in Iowa City, where he was known as a libertarian economist and conservative “by academic standards.” Once again he would be expected to act as a father to his children and a husband to his wife. He resented this expectation, but he saw no alternative—until an insight overwhelmed him. “I can be a woman,” he sobbed. “I am a woman!” At that moment, Donald McCloskey became Deirdre.

McCloskey recounted his gender crossing in his 1999 memoir, which has been reissued by the University of ­Chicago Press with a new afterword. It is a striking tale, lent special interest by McCloskey’s status as one of the most glittering stars in the conservative firmament. He has received the Edmund Burke Medal, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Adam Smith Prize. His work was supported by the Earhart Foundation, whose founder believed “that the free, competitive American enterprise system, based upon the Christian ethic, was the highest form of social organization.” He publishes regularly in conservative outlets, including a recent special issue of National Review urging conservatives to resist socialism. (A writer for the same magazine has said it is “Time for a Compromise on Transgenderism.”)

McCloskey’s most monumental work is a trilogy on the “Bourgeois Era,” which updates Max Weber’s description of the cultural habits underlying the capitalist order. Weber’s account, published in 1905, described capitalism as arising from the “protestant ethic” of the bourgeoisie. Calvinism was especially effective in promoting this worldly asceticism. In order to assure himself and others of his divine election, the Calvinist eschewed all idleness. He deplored sports on Sunday and practiced a “strict avoidance of all spontaneous enjoyment of life.” His abhorrence of ostentatious clothing and his commitment to sober living helped him to save rather than spend.