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Reading the Austrian works in chronological order

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fegeldolfy Posted: Thu, Oct 25 2012 6:40 PM

Has anyone ever tried reading the Austrian works chronologically? Do you think it's a good idea?

 

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I haven't tried it, but I'm sure it would indeed be a good idea. You may very well get something out of doing things that way that others would not have gotten otherwise.

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I asked because I'm still trying to put together my reading list.

So far I've considered the following formats:

A.Chronological order

    With this one I'm not sure if I'd start with Menger or start with someone like Bastiat or Say. I'm also not sure if I would read all of one author before getting to another, e.g. reading "The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science" before "Prices and Production" even though P&P was published earlier, because Mises started before Hayek.

B.Chronological order, but precede it with 10 book basic intro list

e.g. what has government done to our money, america's great depression, human action, theory of money and credit, socialism, failure of the new economics, etc.

C.10 book basic intro then just read whatever

 

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Well, if you purely want to read about Austrian economics in chronological order, than start with Menger, who was the founder. But if you want to read the history of classical liberalism in order, start with somebody like Bastiat or Lord Acton, or somebody.

If you want to read the entire history of libertarian thought in general, I'd start with Aristotle.

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