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Property And Economic Liberty As Civil Rights: The Magisterial History Of James W. Ely, Jr., Douglas W. Kmiec

Vanderbilt Law Review

This formidable six-volume collection by respected Vanderbilt legal historian, James W. Ely, Jr., is a paean to property as a civil right. The argument of the volumes is made through selected essays by multiple authors, covering colonial time to the present day. It is property, Ely writes in the series introduction, that secures individual autonomy from government coercion, prevents an over-concentration of political authority generally, and encourages investment and economic development., Ely knows the main lesson of history is remembering. The vast literature on the institution of private property, until now, was not sufficiently culled, digested, and assembled, however, to …