Summer Plan for Ivy Leaf

  1. Mark Helprin, The Pacific and Other Stories. (Penguin Books, 2005.)  ISBN:  9780143035762.  This anthology provides a broad cross-section of Helprin’s literary interests.  I regard him as the greatest living American writer.  Students should read all 16 stories.
  2. Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents – The Definitive Edition, ed. Bruce Caldwell.  (University of Chicago Press, 2007; orig. ed. 1944.)  ISBN:  9780226320557.   Hayek, a student of Ludwig von Mises and mentor of Milton Friedman, was one of the 20th century’s most celebrated economic and political thinkers, winning the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974.
  3. Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose:  A Personal Statement. (Mariner Books, 1990).  ISBN:  9780156334600.  Friedman helped to found the “Chicago School of Economics” and earned the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics in 1976.  He mentored Thomas Sowell.
  4. Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics:  A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy, 5th edition.  (Basic Books, 2014.)  ISBN:  9780465060733.  Sowell has been a senior scholar at the Hoover Institute since 1980.  He has also written extensively on public policy questions such as race, education, and government.  At 704 pages, this is the longest of the four books.