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From economist and New York Times bestselling author Bryan Caplan, a provocative and powerful argument for ending the age of big government and embracing free markets as the best tool to foster prosperity for all.

 “Markets do the good things that sound bad; governments do the bad things that sound good.” So begins the audacious argument from New York Times bestselling author Bryan Caplan in his essential treatise on modern economies, Unbeatable. Caplan’s case is not merely ideological: he shows compellingly that markets—by lowering prices, giving consumers what they want, and weighing risks—deliver the raw materials for human prosperity that history tells us are unbeatable by other means. Their more popular alternative, governments, focus on addressing crowd-pleasing complaints, incurring high costs and delivering dubious benefits. With this historical foundation, Caplan makes the case for unabashed support of free markets and fervent opposition to government intervention. 

Unbeatable imagines a world where markets are allowed in all the places where we think we don’t want them—schools, immigration, social care, and housing policy—and sketches the positive social and economic transformations that would follow from privatization. These include the miracle effects of giving people money instead of Medicare and Social Security; the ability of open borders to solve demographic and labor problems; and the universal benefits of less regulation. In prose that is uncoded and uncommonly honest, Caplan explains how our aversion to markets emerged from our shared wish to avoid wrestling with tradeoffs—the social desirability bias that leads us to favor bad things that sound good over good things that sound bad. Markets, it turns out, can save us from those disappointments, especially compared to the alternatives. Unlike many free-market economists, Caplan freely concedes the ugly downsides of the policies he favors—but argues that the policies should be evaluated on their overall performance rather than their emotional appeal. 

Unbeatable is the maximalist, politically unbeholden case for markets as tools for human flourishing. For readers with open hearts, it offers nothing short of an antidote to our economic discontents.

How the zombie represents capitalism’s fantasy of limitless labor

Much more than just an enduring figure of horror entertainment, the zombie is a uniquely modern symbol representing capitalism’s most brutal demands on human life. Examining the push to extract surplus value from human bodies in ways that exceed their natural limits, David Bering-Porter shows how this notion of the undead is both integral to and symptomatic of capitalism’s endless cycle of growth and consumption.

Bering-Porter demonstrates how the zombie has long been deeply intertwined with issues of race and exploitation, from its origins in the slave plantations of colonial Haiti to its traces in the continuing evolution of artificial intelligence systems, serving as capitalism’s ideal worker: one that never rests, never stops, and never dies. Featuring close readings of Marx alongside films such as I Walked with a Zombie, The Blob, and Night of the Living Dead, the book traces the concept of undead labor as it manifests across various historical epochs, providing insight into the manifold ways that capitalism has sought to transform living beings into instruments of limitless production.

As he weaves together critical race studies with an analysis of popular culture and media, Bering-Porter interrogates racialized capitalism and its fantasy of labor beyond all limits. By highlighting how the zombie is borne of the same ideology that has given rise to contemporary burnout culture and environmental collapse, Undead Labor uncovers the capitalist system’s relentless death drive with the hope that it finally may be put to rest.

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Western democracy is currently under attack by a resurgent Russia, weaponizing new technologies and social media. How to respond? During the Cold War, the West fought off similar Soviet propaganda assaults with shortwave radio broadcasts. Founded in 1949, the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty broadcast uncensored information to the Soviet republics in their own languages. About one-third of Soviet urban adults listened to Western radio. The broadcasts played a key role in ending the Cold War and eroding the communist empire.

R. Eugene Parta was for many years the director of Soviet Area Audience Research at RFE/RL, charged among others with gathering listener feedback. In this book he relates a remarkable Cold War operation to assess the impact of Western radio broadcasts on Soviet listeners by using a novel survey research approach. Given the impossibility of interviewing Soviet citizens in their own country, it pioneered audacious interview methods in order to fly under the radar and talk to Soviets traveling abroad, ultimately creating a database of 51,000 interviews which offered unparalleled insights into the media habits and mindset of the Soviet public. By recounting how the “impossible” mission was carried out, Under the Radar also shows how the lessons of the past can help counter the threat from a once and current adversary.

The authors of this edited volume address the hidden attraction that existed between the extremes of left and right, and of internationalism and nationalism under the decades of communist dictatorship in Eastern Europe. One might suppose that under the suppressive regimes based on leftist ideology and internationalism their right-wing opponents would have been defeated and ultimately removed. These essays, on the other hand, recount the itinerary of survival and revival of "right-wing" thought and activities under communist dictatorship. Resistance and accommodation are explored in the various phases from the Stalinist era to the demise of the Soviet Bloc, with the continuity provided by tacit or concealed right-wing discourses receiving particular consideration. The Eastern European right, both in its conservative and fascist version, centered on nationalism, a legitimizing factor that increased with the downfall of the regimes, and the authors thus accord nationalism special attention.

Two documentary sources for these essays that stand out are files of the security services and the exceptionally rich Oral History Archive compiled by the 1956 Institute in Budapest, Hungary.

A concise and analytically rigorous guide to one of the most contested concepts in contemporary politics. 

Understanding Populism is driven by a clear objective: to advance understanding of populism by systematically dismantling the myths that continue to dominate public discourse and, at times, academic debate. The book approaches populism as a coherent yet flexible set of ideas that can be analyzed through careful conceptual clarification and comparison.

The book opens with an unconventional introduction structured as a dialogue that directly addresses common misunderstandings and establishes the volume’s analytical orientation. The core of the book consists of 101 short chapters organized into six thematic sections, each devoted to critically examining a central myth about populism. Each section concludes with a synthetic reflection highlighting key insights.

This extraordinary book provides a snapshot of socialism throughout the Kádár regime in Hungary (1956-1989) and captures the essence of the world behind the ‘iron curtain’ in a stunning, and often stark, collection of photographs.

Unfinished Socialism is a visually stunning anthropological study containing 450 photographs, many previously unpublished, which portray life in Hungary from every angle: from the May Day March to pop music and from the homeless to sport.

With an introduction that will help the reader understand and appreciate the true meaning of the photographs, this political, social and cultural study of the Kádár years transports the reader back to a time of great significance in Hungary’s long and turbulent history.

“Uprooting Racism and Racists in the United States” has become even more timely and instructive today than when James and Grace Lee Boggs first sounded the alarm in 1970. In this essay, the Boggses diagnose the “essential contradiction” of economic overdevelopment and political underdevelopment, tracing its path through key stages: how racism has been interwoven into U.S. economic development; a destructive national drive for economic growth at all costs; and how subsequent generations of Americans prioritize economics over principles—breeding a collective social irresponsibility that leaves us unable to act ethically in the face of pressing social challenges.

Today, the contradiction the Boggses identified has grown more entrenched—and its consequences more destructive. “Uprooting” helps explain why millions voted for Trump in 2024 despite his demonstrated corruption, why society fails to regulate the expansion of AI and data centers, why we are unable to forestall the climate changes that scientists have long warned against, why immigrants face racist vilification, and why the federal government is intent on erasing the centrality of race to the making of the country. Ultimately, “Uprooting” offers a crucial assessment of where this contradiction began, how it shapes the nation, and where we need to go.