Search Results: Economics & Politics from Respublica Books LLC

New York: Random House, 1964. First edition, first printing. Octavo. Original blue cloth and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Some edgewear to dust jacket along head and foot; small chip to base of spine; rubbing to panels with an abrasion to rear dust jacket panel. Fine in a very good dust jacket.. First edition of Cold Friday, published posthumously by Random House in 1964 after the death of Whittaker Chambers (1901-1961) in 1961. Although Chambers became a household name after the publication of his influential autobiography Witness in 1952, it is in Cold Friday that the full breadth of Chambers' poignant vision is unfurled throughout posthumously published essays, diary entries, and correspondence. Compiled by long-time friend and colleague Duncan Norton-Taylor (former managing editor of Fortune), Cold Friday documents the despair, illness, and courage of Chambers' final years after testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1948 and against Alger Hiss in the… Read More

Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1959. First edition. Octavo. Original black cloth and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Dusting and spotting to page block; two leaves (pp. 176, 177) joined together at bottom (affecting text), each with a closed one-inch tear at bottom; closed one-inch tear to the right bottom corner of front jacket panel; edgewear to base and spine; faint smudging and rubbing to dust jacket. Inscribed by James Burnham on front free endpaper. Very good in very good dust jacket.. A rarely inscribed work by James Burnham (1905-1987). Burnham was an American political philosopher, theorist, and political commentator who became a prominent leader of the post-war American conservative intellectual movement. During the 1930s Burnham was a Trotskyist activist who, along with Sidney Hook, organized the American Workers Party and, in 1934, supported its merger with the Communist League of America to form the US Workers Party. He became a Trotskyist in 1935, but would break with Trotskyism and… Read More

Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1963. First edition. Octavo. Original cloth and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Minor scuffing and edgewear to dust jacket with chips to head and tail of spine; two-inch closed tears to jacket hinges; bump to bottom of boards. Near-fine in a very good dust jacket, which is uncommon for this book.. First edition of Willmoore Kendall's (1909-1967) The Conservative Affirmation, which offers a collection of his most important essays and reviews on conservatism. Kendall was an influential leader in the founding of modern American conservatism-and he remains one of the movement's most interesting thinkers. Born in Oklahoma in 1909, Kendall graduated from high school at age thirteen, from the University of Oklahoma at age eighteen, and studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 1932. Like other founding fathers within the movement, including James Burnham and Whittaker Chambers, he was an early Trotskyist, but Kendall would eventually disclaim Communism following… Read More

London: Faber & Faber Ltd, 1954. First UK edition. Octavo. Original blue cloth (lacking dust jacket). Edgewear and scuffing to boards with wear to spine; toning to endpapers; very small creases to several page corners; dusting and spotting to page block with small ink mark to top block. Very good.. First UK edition of Russell Kirk's (1918-1994) landmark history of modern intellectual conservatism. When The Conservative Mind was first published in 1953 by the Henry Regnery Company in Chicago, a substantial literature had developed in opposition to (or, at least as a critique of) modern liberalism, including through the works of Albert J. Nock, James Burnham, T. S. Eliot, and Richard Weaver. What the literature seemed to lack, however, was a unifying concept, or guiding principle, capable of combining its many unique strands into a coherent tradition. As Henry Regnery affirmed in the book's seventh revised edition, "it was the great achievement, one might even say the historic achievement, of Russell… Read More

Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1953. First US edition, second printing (August 1953). Octavo. Original maroon cloth and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Minor scuffing to board with chip to top of front hinge; minor foxing to pastedowns and free endpapers; edgewear to dust jacket, with chipping along folds and corners; large chip to head of dust jacket and spine, affecting name and title on spine, and to foot of spine; small closed tear to head of rear jacket panel with crease; spotting to dust jacket. Very good early printing of Kirk's masterpiece.. Second printing of Russell Kirk's (1918-1994) landmark history of modern intellectual conservatism. When The Conservative Mind was first published in 1953 by the Henry Regnery Company in Chicago, a substantial literature had developed in opposition to (or, at least as a critique of) modern liberalism, including through the works of Albert J. Nock, James Burnham, T. S. Eliot, and Richard Weaver. What the literature seemed to lack, however, was a… Read More

Roma: Fratelli Bocca, 1896. First edition (in Italian). Octavo. Contemporary half-leather binding with purple percaline boards intricately embossed with a floral motif. Boards worn and scuffed, particularly along spine, with wear to joints; toning to leaves with spotting and minor staining throughout; one-centimeter closed tear to front free endpaper; pencil annotation to title verso page; neat colored pencil marks to several leaves, else a superb copy of this rare and foundational work of elite theory.. Scarce first edition of Gaetano Mosca's (1858-1941) definitive work of elite theory and the doctrine of the ruling class. Mosca earned his law degree from the University of Palermo in 1881 and thereafter taught law in a variety of Italian institutions, including at the University of Turin and the University of Rome. In 1909 Mosca was elected to the Chamber of Deputies of Italy, a parliamentary position that he held until 1919, the year he was nominated a life senator of the Kingdom of Italy. In 1925… Read More

Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1960. First edition. Octavo. Original cloth and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Edgewear to dust jacket, particularly to foot of the front wrapper and spine, including a few small closed tears to jacket; some smudging and sunning to spine and jacket; faint sticker mark to rear wrapper; leaves bright and unmarked. A well-preserved first edition of Bell's most influential work; difficult to find in this condition. Near-fine in a very good-plus dust jacket.. First edition of Daniel Bell's (1919-2011) most influential work evaluating the changing intellectual life in the mid-twentieth century. Bell was a prominent American sociologist, writer, editor, and professor who once described himself as a "socialist in economics, a liberal in politics, and a conservative in culture." Bell began his career as a journalist and served as managing editor of The New Leader (1941-1945), labor editor at Fortune (1948-1958), and co-editor with Irving Kristol of The Public Interest… Read More

Rare books, articles, and correspondence, 1928-1989. English and German language works. Voegelin, Erich: Ueber die form des amerikanischen geistes: Tübingen, Germany: Verlag von J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1928. First edition. Original paper wrappers. Minor creasing and edgewear to wraps; former library sticker to spine and two-inch sticker scar to front wrap; library stamp to title page with penciled strike-through; otherwise leaves bright and unmarked. A scarce and well-preserved first edition of Voegelin's first published book (later translated as On the Form of the American Mind). [German language work]Voegelin, Erich: Rasse und staat: Tübingen, Germany: Verlag von J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1933. First edition. Original paper wrappers. Minor creasing and edgewear to wrappers with some rubbing and spotting; chipping to head and foot of spine; faint sunning to wrappers; occasional pencil underlining and marginalia; otherwise well-preserved. [German language work]Voegelin, Erich: Die… Read More

New York: Politics Publishing Co, 1946. Magazine. Stapled wraps, 8.5 x 11 inches. Lightly worn, staples rusted. Near-fine.. A bright copy of this uncommon publication of Simone Weil's (1909-1943) essay "Factory Work." During the years 1934-1935 ("hard and bitter years of economic crisis" in France), Weil set out to experience and document the "proletarian condition" of France's laborers in the factories of suburban Paris. As a result of her experiences Weil concluded that "our factories have become festering grounds of evil, and the evils of the factories must be corrected." Weil's essay records her appeal for the good over the useful, the qualitative over the quantitative, goodness over well-being-in sum, for a fundamental purpose over mere utilitarian function. Dwight Macdonald (1906-1982) published Weil's essay in the December 1946 issue of politics, a magazine he founded in 1944 and which began as a monthly publication until its fourth year, after which it ran as a quarterly. Macdonald launched… Read More

Workers Party of the U.S., Pioneer Publishers, and Socialist Workers Party, 1938. War and the Workers: Workers Party of the U.S., 1935. Wrappers, 5 x 7.5 inches, 47 pp. Near-fine. Why Did They "Confess"? A Study of the Radek-Piatakov Trial: New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1937. Wrappers, 5.25 x 7.25 inches, 31 pp. Some rubbing and spotting to wrappers. Very good. The People's Front: The New Betrayal: New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1937. Wrappers, 5 x 7.5 inches, 64 pp. Toning to wrappers, very good. How to Fight War: Isolation? Collective Security? Relentless Cass Struggle?: New York: Socialist Workers Party and Young Peoples Socialist League (4th Internationalists), 1938. Wrappers, 5 x 8 inches, 15 pp. Very good. Let the People Vote on War!: New York: Pioneer Publishers, ca. 1938. Wrappers, 5.25 x 8.5 inches, 14 pp. Previous owner's stamp to verso of front wrap, very good. Five pamphlets by James Burnham (1905-1987) published during his Trotskyist years. Prior to Burnham's participation in the… Read More

London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 1936. First edition. Octavo. Publisher's cloth in original dust jacket (not price-clipped). One-inch closed tear to top of front dust jacket, one-inch chip to top of rear dust jacket and head of spine, and chip to bottom spine, else minor edgewear and smudging to dust jacket. Minor spotting to pastedowns and free endpapers. Near-fine in very good dust jacket.. An uncommon copy of Michael Oakeshott's (1901-1990) only non-academic published work, which offers a studied analysis on-of all things-how to successfully bet on horse racing. Co-authored with Oakeshott's Cambridge colleague, Guy T. Griffith, A Guide to the Classics, or How to Pick the Derby Winner analyzes how to successfully evaluate and reduce the field to a handful of likely contenders. The dust jacket to this interesting work provides that "[t]his is not just a joke but a serious study of an enthralling problem. The authors explain how to draw commonsense conclusions from the facts of Breeding and Form, and so… Read More

Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1948. First edition. Octavo. Original boards and dust jacket (not price-clipped). One-inch closed tear to foot of front jacket and small sticker stain to head of rear jacket panel, minor edgewear and toning to the dust jacket, else a fine first edition in a very good-plus dust jacket.. Exceptional first edition of Richard Weaver's (1910-1963) seminal work on the decline of the West and the consequences of its movement away from philosophical realism in favor of moral and intellectual relativism. Weaver was an American professor of English and rhetoric at the University of Chicago and a conservative intellectual in the Southern tradition. Weaver earned his degree in English in 1932 from the University of Kentucky and thereafter pursued his master's degree in English at Vanderbilt University, where John Crowe Ransom supervised his thesis, The Revolt Against Humanism-a critique of the humanism of Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More. He would later pursue a Ph.D.… Read More

Bologna: Il Mulino, 1964. First edition (in Italian). Octavo. Original paper wrappers and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Minor edgewear and toning to wrappers and dust jacket, else fine.. First edition of Augusto Del Noce's (1910-1989) first book, Il problema dell'ateismo, published by Il Mulino in 1964. Del Noce was among Italy's preeminent post-war political and philosophical thinkers whose works and thought have begun to reach the wider Western world thanks to the recent English translations by Carlo Lancelloti of the City University of New York (College of Staten Island) and the McGill-Queen's University Press. In this, his magnum opus, Del Noce assembled his finest works on atheism, Marxism, and Western secularization, evaluating the secularizing trends of modernity and tracing their philosophical roots into our precarious present. Del Noce sought to advance a genealogical history of modern philosophy to explain the modern West's turn toward atheism and its shift away from classical… Read More

Milano: Rusconi, 1978. First edition (in Italian). Octavo. Original red cloth boards and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Minor scuffing to dust jacket; spotting to top page block; very neat underlining to nine pages (possibly that of A. James Gregor). Inscribed and signed by August Del Noce on front free endpaper to A. James Gregor.. First edition of Augusto Del Noce's (1910-1989) Il suicidio della rivoluzione with inscription to University of California at Berkely political scientist A. James Gregor. A leading light among Italian post-war political and philosophical thinkers, Del Noce spent much of his academic career elucidating the connection between philosophical ideas and socio-political history. Del Noce viewed the growth and expansion of atheism as the fundamental question of modernity, and he asserted that Marxism-and, particularly, the dissolution of Marxism into neo-bourgeois nihilism-was a driving force behind the secularization of the modern West. Il suicidio della rivoluzione was among… Read More

New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1953. First edition. Duodecimo. Wrappers. Minor scuffing to wrappers, else near-fine.. John T. Flynn's (1882-1964) account of the story of Owen Lattimore (1900-1989) and the alleged American betrayal of China and Korea into communism. Flynn was an American journalist, anti-communist, and the author of While You Slept (1951) in which he examined the various forces responsible for the Korean War. Flynn took an interest in the case of Owen Lattimore, a journalist and Asian policy scholar who was alleged to be a leading Soviet espionage agent in 1950. In the 1930s Lattimore served as editor of Public Affairs, a journal published by the Institute of Pacific Relations, and held professorships throughout his life, including at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Leeds. Lattimore also acted as an advisor to the American government during World War II with respect to its policy in Asia. In 1950 Senator Joseph McCarthy accused Lattimore of being an influential… Read More

New York: Basic Books, Inc, 1984. First edition. Octavo. Original blue cloth and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Minor wear and creasing to jacket, including two small, closed tears to head of front and rear jacket; small, neat pencil marks in the margins of a handful of pages. This first edition inscribed by Charles Murray to Robert Nisbet on front free endpaper: "To Robert Nisbet, / With admiration & best wishes, / Charles Murray." A bright first edition and association copy of Murray's classic work.. A bright first edition of Charles Murray's (b. 1943) groundbreaking evaluation of the efficacy of America's welfare state policies from 1950 to 1980, warmly inscribed to influential American sociologist, author, and public commentator Robert Nisbet. First published in 1984, Murray wrote Losing Ground while a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, arguing that America's social welfare policies, as they have been implemented in the US, have had the unintended and perverse effect of slowing and even… Read More

New York: The John Day Company, 1941. First edition, first printing. Octavo. Original orange cloth in the scarce and well-preserved original dust jacket (not price-clipped). Chip to head and base of spine; one-inch closed tear to head of front panel; small scuff to rear panel. Exceptional first printing of Burnham's groundbreaking work in an uncommonly bright dust jacket. Fine in a very good-plus dust jacket.. James Burnham's (1905-1987) seminal work in which he argues that capitalism will be displaced by a form of global managerialism and, as a result, bureaucratic elites will supplant workers and capitalists at the apex of power. Prior to publishing The Managerial Revolution Burnham was a prominent Trotskyist, but he would resign from the Workers Party in 1940 and thereafter become an influential theorist in the post-war American conservative movement. Shortly after the outbreak of the European phase of World War II, Burnham wrote The Managerial Revolution to explain the major world powers'… Read More

Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1970. First edition. Octavo. Original black cloth and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Minor toning and scuffing to dust jacket, else fine. Bookplate of Japanese-American theologian and Christian environmentalist, Jitsuo Morikawa, is pasted to front free endpaper. Fine in near-fine dust jacket.. First edition of Richard John Neuhaus's (1936-2009) first book, co-authored with Austrian-born sociologist and theologian Peter L. Berger (1929-2017). Neuhaus was among the most influential American Christian intellectuals of the twentieth century who, alongside H. Reinhold Niebuhr, John Courtney Murray, and other prominent contemporary theologians, explored the intersection of religion, politics, and policy in America's modern public square. Neuhaus began his career as a minister in the Lutheran Church after completing his divinity training at Concordia Seminary in 1960. From 1961 to 1978 Neuhaus served as pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church, overseeing… Read More

New York: New Masses, Inc, 1931. Magazine. Stapled wraps, 11.75 x 8.75 inches, 31 pp. Toning to wrappers and leaves with minor creasing and wear, but otherwise very well-preserved. An exceptional example of this rare volume. Very good-plus.. Exceptional and bright edition of the December 1931 volume of New Masses magazine (Volume 7, Number 7), featuring original works by Whittaker Chambers (1901-1961) ("Death of the Communists: A Story") and John Dos Passos (1896-1970) ("Wesley Everest"). New Masses was an American Marxist magazine published from 1926 to 1948 and was closely affiliated with the Communist Party USA. Throughout the Great Depression and into World War II the magazine served as a fount of Marxist intellectual thought in America, publishing fiction, poetry, book reviews, and think pieces from the country's leading communist, progressive, and Left-leaning intellectuals. Throughout its influential run the magazine counted numerous leading lights among its editors and contributors,… Read More

New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1932. First American edition, review copy; 1932 book review article from "The Modern Quarterly" enclosed. Octavo. Original cloth with dust jacket (not price-clipped). Rare dust jacket in fair condition, internally and externally mended with tape, chipping (including one-inch chip to bottom spine), with splitting to spine and some staining. Publication date ("Aug 18 1932 / Publication Date") stamped to upper front cover. Very good in a fair and worn (though scarce) original dust jacket from an advance review copy.. A review copy of José Ortega y Gasset's (1883-1955) seminal analysis of the masses and the influence of "mass man" on modern society. Ortega was born in Madrid and was early influenced by his family's liberal leanings. His father was director of El Imparcial, an ideologically liberal newspaper owned by his mother, Dolores Gasset, which was one of the first newspapers in Spain to be published by a company rather than a political party. After earning… Read More