Fund-of-funds Books

You know it's going to be a great read when you say out loud, "That's right - I forgot about that!" and have to stop twice in the first few pages to get your trusty yellow highlighter and your notebook!

As a seasoned fundraiser for major gifts and somewhat recently for planned gifts, I was surpised at the level of "reinvigoration" I felt while reading this real world guide. Like putting on a new pair of glasses and seeing AGAIN what the path really is to successful relationship fundraising. It was great to be reminded that a few basic, unchanging goals and solid marketing tools are the backbone of a successful planned gift program. I will be adding to my outlook calendar, and those of my staff, to reread this quick page-turner of a gem twice a year so I can be reminded of what's important and how easy it can be.

Combing through Larry Stelter's new book, How to Raise Planned Gifts by Mail, was my self-assignment on the Nashville-Oklahoma City leg of a recent business flight. I'd met him once for a few minutes at a conference. I knew that his company, founded in 1962, focuses exclusively on helping thousands of charities (particularly colleges and hospitals) build their planned giving programs. I'd seen a few newsletters produced by The Stelter Company for its clients. I expected the book to be solid if a little dull (hey, it's planned giving). I didn't expect his book to be utterly convincing (it's a fast, fun read by one of the world's top experts); extraordinarily frank (Larry's seen more than his share of unrealistic expectations and silly notions); or unusually useful (every step is illustrated with real-life examples). I don't know of any other book like it or even close. Almost all my clients are launching or expanding their planned giving programs; I've made this book my new Bible on the topic. One merest of quibbles: Larry's title is two words too long. Don't assume the "...by Mail" thing is something special. All planned giving programs, as he demonstrates, use direct mail to reach prospects.

In this book Vreeland offers a cogent analysis of why governments enter into IMF agreements, and identifies startling effects of the effect of such programs on host country economic performance.

Unlike Stiglitz in "Globalization and Its Discontents," Vreeland takes a quantitative approach in measuring the effects of IMF programs. His work seems less concerned with the empty rhetoric that surrounds the anti-globalization movement that have pre-occupied many IMF crtics, and instead draws heavily upon statstical evidence.

Not the only book published recently about the IMF in academia, but certainly one of the better ones.

The growing movement against neo-liberal policies needs more books like this, one that really examine if their propaganda matches up tough scrutiny. As Vreeland discusses to much of supposed statistical studies showing the harms of IMF policies mearly state "countries in IMF conditionalities do worse in criteria X than countries that do not" which he cmpares to simply saying people who go to a doctor are found to be sicker than those who do not. This book - not the final answer to the question - provides a first good study of the effects of IMF programs. While he dose find that IMF programs do negatively effect growth I believe many who have organized against the IMF will be surprised by how small the difference is. His findings that the programs exacerbate economic inequality are hardly new yet are a nice new addition to the literature. Most interesting - and where this book is a serious and importantant contribution is inhis studies on the what determines a countries participation in the IMF program. Combiming anecdotal evidence, logical anlysis and statistical studies he shows that it is largely determined by desire of the executive branch to have the conditions imposed on their country. To the extent that this is accuarate then the anti-IMF movement might need to rewrite its propaganda of the IMF being about class war of the first world nations against the third world countries to being about class war from the world capitalist against the world's workers.

This books in unique in Finance. Each chapter presents a major achievement, a practical success which permits the reader further progress in truly understanding the very arcanes surrounding the world of hedge fund investing.

Carefully prepared, the authors provide online additional documentation and on-line help to readers at:

[...]

No must-have but this one!

I first saw this book by chance in the Library of Congress. After some minutes I found it so comprehensive and educative I fell in love with it! The book solves central problems regarding risk measuring and portfolio optimization with alternative investments, everything explained clearly in the chapters, supported with extensive mathematical appendices. A jewel for all professionals in the hedge fund industry, specially for quant researchers.

I cannot understand why it has not been translated to english, this book has no peer in financial literature.

I have read "The Latin American Conspiracy" and found it not only interesting but motivating. Van Geldern brings America's financial vunerability home in a clear and uncomfortably vivid way. So uncomfortable, I had to re-think my views of America as the world's leader in monetary affairs. But it was also fun and full of action, intrigue and Holloywoodesque drama. I sincerely recommend this book for anyone concerned about our national financial standing and what possible alternatives we have if money does become worthless. S.B. Thompson

I have read "The Latin American Conspiracy" and found it not only interesting but motivating. Van Geldern brings American's financial vunerability home in a clear and uncomfortably vivid way. So uncomfortable, I had to re-think my views of America as the world's leader in monetary affairs. But it was also fun and full of action, intrigue and Holloywoodesque drama. I sincerely recommend this book for anyone concered about our national financial standing and what possible alternatives we have if money does become worthless. S.B. Thompson

Lending Credibility is the winner of the 2003 Ed A. Hewett book prize awarded annually by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies for the most outstanding publication on the political economy of the former Soviet Union, East Central Europe, and/or their successor states.

The book prize committee wrote the following citation about this volume:

One of the central debates of the transition from socialism over the past decade has been the role of the International Monetary Fund. It is vilified by some as the satanic agent of globalization, and ignored by others who treated democratization as a self-contained process divorced from the messy processes under way in the region's economies.

These debates about the role of the IMF have generated a lot of heat, but not that much light. Just how much influence did the IMF really have over the economies in transition? And was that influence a help or a hindrance the process of economic transition?

Randall Stone's book, Lending Credibility, is the first systematic effort to address these questions. It is a major achievement, the result of both careful reflection on how to conceptualize and investigate the problem, and a prodigious amount of effort gathering data.

A political scientist, Stone addresses one of the standard problems in that discipline: what influence can an international organization (in this case, IMF) have on the domestic policies of member countries (in this case, transition economies). To solve this problem, he deploys a variety of analytical tools. He uses a game-theoretic model of interaction between the IMF, borrower countries, and private investors to derive their equilibrium strategies. The predictions of the model are then tested statistically using a set of monthly data for the 1990s for 26 post-Communist countries, including over 20 variables. In an unprecedented feat of thoroughness, the author complements statistical testing with detailed interviews with dozens of former officials to reconstruct the decision-making process in four of the countries under study and test his theoretical results.

Stone develops the notion of credibility as the key factor linking IMF leverage to domestic decision making. He comes to a balanced conclusion, neither demonizing nor whitewashing the IMF, but arguing that the IMF can play a pivotal and positive role by using its lending to signal support and encouragement for the adoption of effective policies by national leaders.

Quite the read: fluid, sober, well written and systematic in its approach. Pioneering the approach to this question, Randall Stone utilizes many different tools to present his argument and send his message. Not only is it sound in its argument, but also an enjoyable read. Anyone interested in real research about the impact of the IMF should consult this book.

John Stuart Mill's "liberty principle" caused a great schism between his and James Stephen's ideas of human nature, the public role of religion, and society's duty in setting moral standards for its citizens. James Fitzjames Stephen lived from 1829 to 1894. After serving as a judge in India for three years, Stephen decided to write a critical analysis of Mill's book, while on his long voyage back to Great Britain in 1872. While Stephen was in India, he observed with great trepidation, political changes taking place back in Great Britain after the passage of the Reform Act of 1867. This legislation granted voting rights to male urban workers. "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity was the most penetrating defense of conservative values written in Victorian times--and after Burke and perhaps Coleridge, the most important work of English conservative thought." However, Stephen's book never really caught on in his lifetime. Alexander Bain recorded Mill's only known comment on Stephen's book. Stephen "does not know what he is arguing against; and is more likely to repel than to attract people." These were very prophetic words, "Stephen suffered the fate of most men out of step with their age: unable to attract any school of thought, his ideas failed to bear fruit in his lifetime." While Mill's book On Liberty has had numerous printings after its publication, Stephen's book laid virtually dormant until 1967, when it finally came back into print. Though Stephen failed while he was alive to garner a multitude of adherents to his cause, his ideas have earned a considerable amount of vindication in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Stephen distilled Mill's "liberty principle" theory down to every person pleasing himself without harming his neighbor. This means that every moral system that interferes with Mill's "liberty principle," "either to obtain benefits for society at large other than protection against injury or to do good to the persons affected, would be wrong in principle." This leads Stephen to think that Mill had made a fatal flaw politically in his "liberty principle," when he said that free discussion was primarily all that society needed to rule its citizens. Once again, Stephen thought that Mill put too much faith in education advancing humanity to a place where a shared social morality would become obsolete. Stephen made his point with a bit of wit when he wrote, "Society cannot make silk purses out of sows' ears." First, Stephen argued that a large portion of the population has been and always would be either uneducated, or of dubious character. Second, Stephen argued that most of law-abiding society did not feel particularly constrained by the moral force and law imposed by society on them. After all, most of the citizens have enacted and supported these moral standards and laws through their elected representatives in government. Stephen agreed with Mill, that people felt most restrained in their actions by public opinion and from social ostracism.

Once again to restate the issue, Mill's main reason for proposing his "liberty principle" was to free people from the constraints placed on them by the moral values, customs, and mores of society. Mill wanted people to have unfettered freedom to experiment with their lives provided it did not harm others. Stephen rightly concluded that societies used force of morality and sometimes the law, depending on the severity of the act, in order to guard against social ills that a society deemed dangerous to its existence. "Laws and moral systems are conditions of life imposed upon men either by political power or by the force of argument." Thus, Stephen took great umbrage with Mill's "liberty principle," because it disallowed three types of coercion that Mill argued society had no business imposing on its citizens, since they did not meet the standard of self-protection, or of preventing harm to others. These three types of coercions are,

1. Coercion for the purpose of establishing and maintaining religions.
2. Coercion for the purpose of establishing and practically maintaining
morality.
3. Coercion for the purpose of making alterations in the existing forms
of government and social institutions.


Stephen pointed out, that all three type of coercion's were examples of coercion used by people in their opinion for the betterment of society. Simply stated, the world of politics and the world of morality cannot exist separately. Since these coercive forces went against Mill's "liberty principle," Stephen concluded that Mill would consign every system of morality to the dustbin.
Stephen believed that the correct answer in how to build and maintain a healthy society came from his readings of the English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, and from religious morality. Hobbes lived from 1588 to 1679, and he greatly influenced Stephen's knowledge of human history and psychology. Both Stephen and Hobbes correctly perceive that humankind has been constantly in fear and conflict with one another, "Man has a fearful disease..." Stephen wrote Hobbes on Government for the Saturday Review, which illustrated the influence Hobbes ideas had on Stephen. In his essay, Stephen writes, "If no one or more men had the power of issuing to others such commands as appeared reasonable to themselves, there would be no such thing as society amongst men." Stephen understands, as Thomas Hobbes did, that force lies at the root of all government. "People are said to govern others by law, where they influence their conduct by imposing laws upon them." In politics, moral persuasion and coercion went hand-in-hand, and Stephen expanded on this duality of moral persuasion and coercion to illustrate his point. One could not be a political leader without the ability to use moral persuasion to convince others to follow their leadership, and while possessing the capability of consolidating the force and power of their numbers. Stephen correctly realized, that it was only natural for people, when they came together to form societies, to bring with them shared religious and cultural values that would serve as the foundation of the society they wished to build.

Stephen's experience, as an attorney and judge, gave him a unique insight into human psychology, which had him arguing that most of the social ills perpetrated by humankind were done out of evil or weakness of willpower, and not out of ignorance. To illustrate his point in his argument, Stephen used, as an example, the poor plight of the drunkard. No drunkard would admit to making a reasoned choice to become a drunkard. If asked to reflect on their choice, they would freely admit that they had no willpower to stop their drinking habit. Looking at human misconduct, which Stephen saw a lot of as an attorney and judge, he adamantly believed that persuasion of argument alone, an idea that Mill supported, could do little to persuade people to change their mischievous ways. Thus, Stephen refuted Mill's idea of reasoned discussion being an adequate amount of force to change a person's actions. Only people that had control of their willpower would be open to change through the force of a reasoned argument. It was Stephen's experience that coercion through punishment and force of law, more times than not, changed one's conduct when they were devoid of an adequate willpower. Moral persuasion also had the ability to point to the consequences of one's actions. One could say that Society's laws were morality and force working in conjunction. Moral persuasion caused people to act in accordance with the law, because the force of punishment instilled fear in them. Stephen understood the human psychology of how in most cases, when moral persuasion and force were applied together to elicit the same outcome, some people considered themselves persuaded, while others considered themselves forced to commit the same act. This fact becomes abundantly clear for anyone who has raised or worked with children. One can observe how children react differently to the same argument. When adults ask children to conduct themselves in a certain way, some children persuaded by the reasoning of the argument will comply, while other children would have to be threatened with some form of punishment to comply. The preceding examples help to illustrate how society winds up infringing on people's liberty every day. People will always have to make choices based on moral persuasion and force, and once they choose, they will have to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Based on their character and psychological makeup, their actions will receive either reward or punishment. As a whole, this is how society operates; it persuades morally or threatens, causing people to act accordingly. Stephen rightly articulated that laws and punishments were nothing more than outgrowths of moral precepts, which were handed down by religious institutions in order to establish and maintain moral values that citizens of a society agreed to follow.

In fact, as a society matured, it would find many of its moral values evolving; thus, becoming constantly debated. Therefore, when Stephen observed what was taking place during the current political affairs of his day, he saw that even small issues before Parliament engender endless debate with seemingly no resolution, until finally a majority forms to solve the issue on their own terms. "Parliamentary government is simply a mild and disguised form of compulsion." Stephen observed that moral force was even more influential in his time, and would be so in the future. The most that one could hope for was that one could regulate and subdue the government's use of force. However, Stephen astutely observes that, "President Lincoln attained his objects by the use of a degree of force which would have crushed Charlemagne and his paladins and peers like so many eggshells."

Stephen knew through his study of history, that no amount of economic progress, improvement in education, freedom of religion, or political equality would change the fact that any society would always embrace shared moral, religious, and cultural values. Simple human nature taught Stephen, that most of the citizens in any society would want to impose their moral values and beliefs on all the members of the society. The majority of citizens in any society will constantly be jostling for the adoption of their beliefs, and will be probing the boundaries of how far they can impose their beliefs on the rest of society. Thus, the very best that citizens of a society can hope for is that those people who are in power, and have the public trust of most of a nation's citizens will follow Stephen's examples of legislative restraint, and respect for people's privacy as he defined privacy.

I read this book for a graduate class in Philosophy. Recommended reading for anyone interested in philosophy, political science, and history.

John Stuart Mill's "liberty principle" caused a great schism between his and James Stephen's ideas of human nature, the public role of religion, and society's duty in setting moral standards for its citizens. James Fitzjames Stephen lived from 1829 to 1894. After serving as a judge in India for three years, Stephen decided to write a critical analysis of Mill's book, while on his long voyage back to Great Britain in 1872. While Stephen was in India, he observed with great trepidation, political changes taking place back in Great Britain after the passage of the Reform Act of 1867. This legislation granted voting rights to male urban workers. "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity was the most penetrating defense of conservative values written in Victorian times--and after Burke and perhaps Coleridge, the most important work of English conservative thought." However, Stephen's book never really caught on in his lifetime. Alexander Bain recorded Mill's only known comment on Stephen's book. Stephen "does not know what he is arguing against; and is more likely to repel than to attract people." These were very prophetic words, "Stephen suffered the fate of most men out of step with their age: unable to attract any school of thought, his ideas failed to bear fruit in his lifetime." While Mill's book On Liberty has had numerous printings after its publication, Stephen's book laid virtually dormant until 1967, when it finally came back into print. Though Stephen failed while he was alive to garner a multitude of adherents to his cause, his ideas have earned a considerable amount of vindication in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Stephen distilled Mill's "liberty principle" theory down to every person pleasing himself without harming his neighbor. This means that every moral system that interferes with Mill's "liberty principle," "either to obtain benefits for society at large other than protection against injury or to do good to the persons affected, would be wrong in principle." This leads Stephen to think that Mill had made a fatal flaw politically in his "liberty principle," when he said that free discussion was primarily all that society needed to rule its citizens. Once again, Stephen thought that Mill put too much faith in education advancing humanity to a place where a shared social morality would become obsolete. Stephen made his point with a bit of wit when he wrote, "Society cannot make silk purses out of sows' ears." First, Stephen argued that a large portion of the population has been and always would be either uneducated, or of dubious character. Second, Stephen argued that most of law-abiding society did not feel particularly constrained by the moral force and law imposed by society on them. After all, most of the citizens have enacted and supported these moral standards and laws through their elected representatives in government. Stephen agreed with Mill, that people felt most restrained in their actions by public opinion and from social ostracism.

Once again to restate the issue, Mill's main reason for proposing his "liberty principle" was to free people from the constraints placed on them by the moral values, customs, and mores of society. Mill wanted people to have unfettered freedom to experiment with their lives provided it did not harm others. Stephen rightly concluded that societies used force of morality and sometimes the law, depending on the severity of the act, in order to guard against social ills that a society deemed dangerous to its existence. "Laws and moral systems are conditions of life imposed upon men either by political power or by the force of argument." Thus, Stephen took great umbrage with Mill's "liberty principle," because it disallowed three types of coercion that Mill argued society had no business imposing on its citizens, since they did not meet the standard of self-protection, or of preventing harm to others. These three types of coercions are,

1. Coercion for the purpose of establishing and maintaining religions.
2. Coercion for the purpose of establishing and practically maintaining
morality.
3. Coercion for the purpose of making alterations in the existing forms
of government and social institutions.


Stephen pointed out, that all three type of coercion's were examples of coercion used by people in their opinion for the betterment of society. Simply stated, the world of politics and the world of morality cannot exist separately. Since these coercive forces went against Mill's "liberty principle," Stephen concluded that Mill would consign every system of morality to the dustbin.
Stephen believed that the correct answer in how to build and maintain a healthy society came from his readings of the English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, and from religious morality. Hobbes lived from 1588 to 1679, and he greatly influenced Stephen's knowledge of human history and psychology. Both Stephen and Hobbes correctly perceive that humankind has been constantly in fear and conflict with one another, "Man has a fearful disease..." Stephen wrote Hobbes on Government for the Saturday Review, which illustrated the influence Hobbes ideas had on Stephen. In his essay, Stephen writes, "If no one or more men had the power of issuing to others such commands as appeared reasonable to themselves, there would be no such thing as society amongst men." Stephen understands, as Thomas Hobbes did, that force lies at the root of all government. "People are said to govern others by law, where they influence their conduct by imposing laws upon them." In politics, moral persuasion and coercion went hand-in-hand, and Stephen expanded on this duality of moral persuasion and coercion to illustrate his point. One could not be a political leader without the ability to use moral persuasion to convince others to follow their leadership, and while possessing the capability of consolidating the force and power of their numbers. Stephen correctly realized, that it was only natural for people, when they came together to form societies, to bring with them shared religious and cultural values that would serve as the foundation of the society they wished to build.

Stephen's experience, as an attorney and judge, gave him a unique insight into human psychology, which had him arguing that most of the social ills perpetrated by humankind were done out of evil or weakness of willpower, and not out of ignorance. To illustrate his point in his argument, Stephen used, as an example, the poor plight of the drunkard. No drunkard would admit to making a reasoned choice to become a drunkard. If asked to reflect on their choice, they would freely admit that they had no willpower to stop their drinking habit. Looking at human misconduct, which Stephen saw a lot of as an attorney and judge, he adamantly believed that persuasion of argument alone, an idea that Mill supported, could do little to persuade people to change their mischievous ways. Thus, Stephen refuted Mill's idea of reasoned discussion being an adequate amount of force to change a person's actions. Only people that had control of their willpower would be open to change through the force of a reasoned argument. It was Stephen's experience that coercion through punishment and force of law, more times than not, changed one's conduct when they were devoid of an adequate willpower. Moral persuasion also had the ability to point to the consequences of one's actions. One could say that Society's laws were morality and force working in conjunction. Moral persuasion caused people to act in accordance with the law, because the force of punishment instilled fear in them. Stephen understood the human psychology of how in most cases, when moral persuasion and force were applied together to elicit the same outcome, some people considered themselves persuaded, while others considered themselves forced to commit the same act. This fact becomes abundantly clear for anyone who has raised or worked with children. One can observe how children react differently to the same argument. When adults ask children to conduct themselves in a certain way, some children persuaded by the reasoning of the argument will comply, while other children would have to be threatened with some form of punishment to comply. The preceding examples help to illustrate how society winds up infringing on people's liberty every day. People will always have to make choices based on moral persuasion and force, and once they choose, they will have to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Based on their character and psychological makeup, their actions will receive either reward or punishment. As a whole, this is how society operates; it persuades morally or threatens, causing people to act accordingly. Stephen rightly articulated that laws and punishments were nothing more than outgrowths of moral precepts, which were handed down by religious institutions in order to establish and maintain moral values that citizens of a society agreed to follow.

In fact, as a society matured, it would find many of its moral values evolving; thus, becoming constantly debated. Therefore, when Stephen observed what was taking place during the current political affairs of his day, he saw that even small issues before Parliament engender endless debate with seemingly no resolution, until finally a majority forms to solve the issue on their own terms. "Parliamentary government is simply a mild and disguised form of compulsion." Stephen observed that moral force was even more influential in his time, and would be so in the future. The most that one could hope for was that one could regulate and subdue the government's use of force. However, Stephen astutely observes that, "President Lincoln attained his objects by the use of a degree of force which would have crushed Charlemagne and his paladins and peers like so many eggshells."

Stephen knew through his study of history, that no amount of economic progress, improvement in education, freedom of religion, or political equality would change the fact that any society would always embrace shared moral, religious, and cultural values. Simple human nature taught Stephen, that most of the citizens in any society would want to impose their moral values and beliefs on all the members of the society. The majority of citizens in any society will constantly be jostling for the adoption of their beliefs, and will be probing the boundaries of how far they can impose their beliefs on the rest of society. Thus, the very best that citizens of a society can hope for is that those people who are in power, and have the public trust of most of a nation's citizens will follow Stephen's examples of legislative restraint, and respect for people's privacy as he defined privacy.

I read this book for a graduate class in Philosophy. Recommended reading for anyone interested in philosophy, political science, and history.

Loved this book and very interesting if you are also interested in medicine and the workings of the FDA ! TOO much politics in the FDA. . .

in an affable style,financial wizard-philanthropist Dreyfus' seemingly casual biography takes on a larger perspective, partly because of who he is,(of course), but mostly from his unselfish desire to share an important discovery. THE LION OF WALL STREET and the more recent version of A REMARKABLE MEDICINE HAS BEEN OVERLOOKED are essensially the same book,the paperback REMARKABLE an update of the hardcover LION

This handsome volume, attractive in paper, typeface, and binding, is the first of twenty volumes of the not-quite-complete writings of James Buchanan (relatively ephemeral pieces will be left out). Apart from this volume and a final one containing an index to the series and a curriculum vitae, the collection gathers Buchanan's work by topics. This introductory volume contains a wide-ranging sample of thirty-one articles on the job and responsibilities of economists, public choice, public finance, constitutionalism, and ethics. The editors have added a fourteen-page foreword and reprinted the 1986 press release of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announcing the award of the Nobel prize to Buchanan...

One quibble may convey a suggestion for future volumes in this series. The editors fail to adjust Buchanan's cross-references. Even when, as often occurs, Buchanan cites another article of his that happens to be reprinted in the current volume, the editors fail to tell the reader that he has the cited work already in his hands.

All in all, though, the project of Buchanan's collected works is off to a magnificent start. Economists will have convenient and pleasant access to enduringly fruitful teachings.

This, the first volume of Professor James M. Buchanan's Collected Works series, contains a selection of papers meant to provide an overview of his entire oeuvre, as contained in the other 19 volumes of the series. Professor Buchanan is considered one of the most prominent scientists associated with public choice theory, which is the application of the analytical tools of economic decision making ("private choice") to the arena of political decision making ("public choice"). For his contributions, Professor Buchanan would go on to earn the 1986 Nobel Prize in economics.

The papers selected for this volume do indeed make for a good overview of the rest of the series. They are categorized by topic: public choice theory, taxation and public debt finance, economic inquiry, ethics, and constitutionalism (i.e. "the science of rules", p. 431). Arguably, Buchanan's work on public-goods theory is underrepresented here (papers on it can be found in volume 15 of the series, in addition to the 1968 monograph The Demand and Supply of Public Goods that makes up volume 5 in the series).

Volume 1 contains a foreword by the three editors that serves as an introduction to the entire series. It also contains the press release that explains the Nobel Academy's rationale for awarding Professor Buchanan the Nobel Prize. In addition, there are an autobiographical essay and a section with biographical data. The final paper in the book is Professor Buchanan's Nobel lecture. The editors also provide a table of contents of the entire Collected Works series, in which they arrange the papers from volume 1 topically among the other volumes in the series, as if volume 1 did not exist separately. This is helpful in case a paper in volume 1 sparks an interest in further reading.

A minor point of criticism is that the editors deliberately selected what they call "classic" papers, which means quite a few older ones (Buchanan has been publishing for more than half a century). It might have been more suitable for newcomers to Buchanan if the editors had instead selected more of the later papers, which often contain more fully worked-out expositions of Buchanan's ideas. In addition, the early papers are more pedantic in style, while the more recent ones are more conversational. This change in writing style is by no means characteristic for Buchanan, but has occurred with writing in general. But in any case, inclusion of more recent papers might have made the volume more accessible.

Still, although most of the papers contained here have been written with the density and economy of words that are typical for academic writing, the reader does not really need to possess any particular knowledge of economics to be able to understand most of the ideas contained in them. The more technical papers have been deliberately withheld from this volume and are included in the later volumes instead.

I've added this to my list of "must buys" for prospect research training and reference. It's a plus that the book is the collaborative effort of four professionals from different backgrounds.

I highly recommend this book for those who are getting started in donor prospect research & major gifts. It is very useful, especially for the novice.

I agree with Dr. Boudreaux.

When Hayek said "We understand now that all enduring structures above the level of simplest atoms, and up to the brain and society, are the results of, and can be explained only in terms of, processes of selective evolution..." He was reiterating the insights that Spencer was already expounding over a century earlier. Given my current state of ignorance I believe that Herbert Spencer is the greatest intellectual of all time, with F.A. Hayek coming in a close second. It seems like the world is just beginning to catch up to Hayek. Who knows how much longer till we rediscover Spencer.


This book is a masterpiece. It has been a long time since I read it and the essay I remember most is "Over-legislation" where he does a great job criticizing government interventions into what he referred to as the social organism. He was right! We really are a social organism... or has Hayek would mention "extended order". I quote this wonderful essay often in my book.

No wonder Darwin himself said to him "Every one with eyes to see and ears to hear (the number, I fear, are not many) ought to bow their knee to you, and I for one do." and in another occasion referred to Spencer as "twenty times my superior."

This book, deservedly, is a classic. Although relatively short, it is chock-full of insights -- many of which anticipate the important work decades later by F.A. Hayek. Spencer's passion for freedom, and his understanding of the nature of politicized and depoliticized societies, was deep. This is an inspiring work.