Freedom Book of the Year from Free-Market.Net: The Freedom Network

The State vs. The People

If you didn't participate in Free-Market.Net's Freedom Book of the Year poll, you robbed yourself of excellent odds for winning some great prizes. Of more than 800 Freedom Book of the Month subscribers, not to mention readers of the web edition, only about 150 of you bothered to come by and cast a vote. What gives, folks?

Oh well -- you do the math. We gave away six prizes, and drew from among 150 entrants. That translates to a 1 in 25 chance of winning. If you didn't vote this year, I bet you will next year.

Chris Waichunas of Holt, Michigan, Bruce Sommer of San Jose, California and Dave Kennedy of Brentwood, Tennessee will be receiving "free-marketeer" coffee mugs in the mail any day now, courtesy of Free-Market.Net's CafePress store.

Gil Guillory -- by day a mild-mannered chemical engineer at Kellogg Brown & Root, by night Texas's Libertarian "Shadow Congressman" -- won a $50 gift certificate from Laissez Faire Books.

Our grand prize winner, Rick Watras, is a libertarian activist in Massachusetts. Rick's considered response to the news that he had picked up a cool $100 worth of books from Laissez Faire? "OH YA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Rick is now busy whittling his $400 wish list down to size.

But wait ... that's only five prizes.

As I mentioned in the mailings about the poll, we don't always tell you everything. In this particular case, I didn't want to skew the poll in favor of any particular book, so Gary York of Lenexa Kansas was pleasantly surprised to learn that he had won an autographed copy of The American Zone, courtesy of author L. Neil Smith.

There was, of course, one more winner. You picked a Freedom Book of the Year for 2001 (that's what this was all about, remember?)

The voting was close. It would be strange if it wasn't close, with 150 people voting on twelve books (and write-ins). Steven J. Milloy's Junk Science Judo and L. Neil Smith's Lever Action tied for second with 16 votes each; Smith's The American Zone and Total Freedom by Chris Matthew Sciabarra tied for third with 15 votes each. And we had 14 write in votes, five of them for Hans-Hermann Hoppe's Democracy: The God That Failed.

One dedicated, but honest, prize-seeker even cast a write-in for "I didn't read any of them."

But enough of that. The envelope, please:

With 18 votes, the 2001 Freedom Book of the Year is Hope, by Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith. If you haven't read this novel of a near-future libertarian presidency, consider yourself admonished to do so. Our readers picked it as the single best, most important work on freedom published in 2001.

It's no accident that I selected books by L. Neil Smith for three monthly awards in 2001, or that his Forge of the Elders was Freedom Book of the Year for 2000. I'm pleased to find that libertarian readers agree with my considered opinion that he's hands down the best living libertarian author on the scene today. You put The American Zone in a tie for third place; Lever Action in a tie for second; and Hope, his second collaboration with Aaron Zelman (executive director of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership) squarely atop the pile.

I could go on about Hope, but I don't need to. Sunni Maravillosa does so, at length and in style, in the guest review she wrote for its Freedom Book of the Month award, which you can read at:

http://www.free-market.net/features/bookofthemonth/hope.html

As a matter of fact, every one of the twelve Freedom Book of the Month selections is worthy of note, and you can read all about them at:

http://www.free-market.net/features/bookofthemonth/

I'd like to thank our prize sponsors from the bottom of my heart.

First and foremost is Laissez Faire Books, who put up a prize that came to one dollar for every person who voted in the poll. They've got the best selection of, and the best prices on, books about liberty, and I hope that you'll drop by their site. You won't be disappointed, and your library will never be the same again:

http://laissezfairebooks.com/index.cfm?aid=FM

Next, I'd like to thank L. Neil Smith. When I mentioned the poll to him, he said he'd like to participate, and he agreed that announcing an autographed copy of one of his books in advance might unduly influence the voting. If you're interested in his writing -- and you should be -- the place to start is his personal site at:

http://www.lneilsmith.com/

Finally, I'd like to take this opportunity to flog Free-Market.Net's free-marketeer gear. We gave away some pretty nice mugs, but there's more: shirts, hats, mugs and tote bags featuring the Free-Market.Net logo or the Gadsden rattlesnake "Don't Tread on Me" graphic. Versace doesn't have a thing on our line. See it all at:

http://www.cafepress.com/fmn

Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Managing Editor
Free-Market.Net

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edited by Thomas L. Knapp

Past Winners:

February 2002: The State vs. the People by Claire Wolfe and Aaron Zelman.

January 2002: Death by Gun Control by Aaron Zelman and Richard W. Stevens.

December 2001: The American Zone by L. Neil Smith.

November 2001: Ayn Rand and Business by Donna Greiner and Theodore Kinni.

October 2001: Junk Science Judo by Steven J. Milloy.

September 2001: Jonathan Gullible by Ken Schoolland.

August 2001: Hope by L. Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman