Original art

Art gallery

Every image made for the Liberty Archive, 253 works in all: 131 original oil paintings of turning points in economic and political history, and the commissioned book covers. Click a painting to see it full size and download the original, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.

Course paintings

A historical scene for each lecture series, painted in the manner of Sorolla. Each caption names the moment and links to its source.

20th Century American Economic History

J. P. Morgan plays solitaire in his library as bankers wait next door, New York, Panic of 1907

A Seminar with Walter Block

Henry David Thoreau stands at the barred window of Concord jail, Massachusetts, July 1846

Agricultural Subsidies Down on the DC Farm

A farmer plows under his cotton crop for the AAA as his mule balks, Deep South, August 1933

Austrian Economics An Introduction

A Weeskamer official holds up a tulip bulb at the Alkmaar auction, the Netherlands, February 1637

Austrian Economics and Financial Markets

An auctioneer sells town lots to a sweltering crowd at the Las Vegas townsite, 15 May 1905

Austrian Economics and the Financial Markets

Young families line up in the cold to buy the first Levittown houses, Long Island, March 1949

Austrian Economics and the Financial Markets (1999)

The first bullet train leaves Tokyo Station on the new Tokaido Shinkansen, 1 October 1964

Austrian Economics Research Conference 2013

Queen Liliuokalani watches US Marines from a window of Iolani Palace, Honolulu, 17 January 1893

Austrian Scholars Conference 2002

Abraham Lincoln sits in Jefferson Davis's chair in the captured Confederate White House, Richmond, 1865

Austrian Scholars Conference 2003

The Soviet flag comes down over the Kremlin Senate on the night of 25 December 1991

Austrian Scholars Conference 2004

Fidel Castro rides into Havana on a captured tank amid cheering crowds, 8 January 1959

Austrian Scholars Conference 2005

Secretary of State Knox certifies the income tax amendment in the State Department library, February 1913

Austrian Scholars Conference 2006

The courtroom erupts as John Peter Zenger is acquitted of seditious libel, New York City Hall, 1735

Austrian Scholars Conference 2007

Edward Lloyd reads shipping news to merchants and captains in his coffee house, London, about 1689

Austrian Scholars Conference 2008

Alaric's Goths ride in through the opened Salarian Gate by torchlight, Rome, 24 August 410

Austrian Scholars Conference 2009

Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison strike the Compromise of 1790 over dinner, Maiden Lane, New York

Austrian Scholars Conference 2010

Jesus holds up a denarius, render unto Caesar, before questioners in the Temple courts, Jerusalem

Austrian Scholars Conference 2011

Prohibition agents pour liquor into a sewer as Deputy Commissioner Leach watches, New York, about 1921

Austrian Scholars Conference 2012

Levellers in sea-green ribbons follow Robert Lockyer's coffin through London, April 1649

Austrian Scholars Conferences

Passengers crowd the listing deck of the Lusitania as lifeboats lower off Kinsale, 7 May 1915

Austrian School of Economics Revisionist History and Contemporary Theory

Isaac Newton watches milled silver coins struck at the Tower of London mint, Great Recoinage, 1696

Austrian Theory

Berlin workers carry baskets and a wheelbarrow of banknotes from a factory gate, hyperinflation, autumn 1923

Boom, Bust, and the Future

Brokers sign the Buttonwood Agreement on Wall Street, New York, 17 May 1792

Capitalism the Creator

New Year's Eve crowds come to see Edison's electric lamps at Menlo Park, New Jersey, 1879

Capitol Hill Conference on the Gold Standard

Churchill hears Keynes and McKenna argue against gold at dinner, 11 Downing Street, 17 March 1925

Central Banking, Deposit Insurance, and Economic Decline

Savers queue outside a Northern Rock branch in Britain's first bank run in a century, September 2007

Choice in Currency A Path to Sound Money

King Croesus shows Solon the gold of his treasury at Sardis, Lydia, about 550 BC

Commerce and Culture

Groundlings crowd the yard below the stage during a performance at the Globe Theatre, London, 1600

Crisis and Liberty The Expansion of Government Power in American History

Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his first inaugural address at the US Capitol, Washington, 4 March 1933

Critical Episodes in the Life of Mises

Ludwig von Mises argues Otto and Helene Bauer out of a Bolshevik Vienna by lamplight, winter 1918-19

Debates

Lincoln speaks as Douglas waits, first Lincoln-Douglas debate, Ottawa, Illinois, August 1858

Depression, Monetary Destruction, and the Path to Sound Money

Mint officials seal Kublai Khan's paper money as Marco Polo watches, Khanbaliq, about 1280

Despots Left and Right The Tyrannies of Our Times

Molotov signs the Nazi-Soviet pact as Ribbentrop leans in and Stalin watches, Kremlin, 24 August 1939

Documentaries

Parisians watch the Lumiere brothers' first paid film screening, Grand Cafe, 28 December 1895

Economic Downturn: Cause and Cure

Unemployed men file into a soup kitchen on South State Street, Chicago, winter 1931

Economics 101

Governor William Bradford assigns family plots of corn ground at Plymouth Colony, spring 1623

Economics for High School Students

Johannes Gutenberg examines a freshly pulled proof sheet at his press, Mainz, about 1454

Economics in One Lesson

Luddites led by George Mellor batter the door of Rawfolds Mill with hammers, Yorkshire, April 1812

Economics in One Lesson (Auburn 2010)

Samuel Slater watches his water-powered spinning frames start up, Pawtucket, December 1790

Economics in One Lesson (Houston 2011)

Survivors search the wreckage the morning after the great hurricane, Galveston, 9 September 1900

Economy, Society, and History

Louis XVI, in the red cap of liberty, faces the crowd that invaded the Tuileries, Paris, 20 June 1792.

Entertainment

Students hurl books into the Opernplatz bonfire as Goebbels speaks under swastika flags, Berlin, May 1933

Foundations of Libertarian Ethics

Lawspeaker Thorgeir proclaims Iceland's conversion to Christianity from the Law Rock at Thingvellir, AD 1000

Freedom The One Way Out

East Berliners surge through the opened Bornholmer Strasse crossing, night of 9 November 1989

Freedom versus Big Government

Empress Theodora tells Justinian she will not flee the Nika riots, Great Palace, Constantinople, 532

Fundamentals of Economic Analysis A Causal-Realist Approach

A herald proclaims Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices as merchants pull goods from a Roman market, 301

Great Economic Myths

Governor DeWitt Clinton pours Lake Erie water into the Atlantic, the Wedding of the Waters, 1825

History of Liberty

Colonel Thomas Rainsborough speaks at the Putney Debates in St Mary's Church, Putney, October 1647

History: The Struggle for Liberty

Martin Luther refuses to recant before Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms, 1521.

Homeschool Classroom

Sailors and soldiers haul the gilded statue of George III off its pedestal, Bowling Green, New York, July 1776

How Government Destroys Private Wealth

Royal soldiers seize Grand Master Jacques de Molay at the Paris Temple, dawn, 13 October 1307

Imperialism Enemy of Freedom

Commodore Perry comes ashore between ranks of samurai at Kurihama, Japan, 14 July 1853

In Studio Interviews

Ibn Khaldun is lowered by rope over the walls of besieged Damascus to meet Timur, January 1401

Individual Lectures

Eugene Debs denounces the war from the bandstand at Canton, Ohio, as agents take notes, June 1918

Interviews

Diogenes asks Alexander the Great to stand out of his sunlight, Corinth, 336 BC

Introduction to Austrian Economic Analysis

Panic on the Vienna Stock Exchange on Black Friday, 9 May 1873, seen from the gallery.

Introduction to Economics A Private Seminar with Murray N Rothbard

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert open the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace, London, 1 May 1851

Introduction to Microeconomics

NRA chief Hugh S. Johnson salutes the Blue Eagle parade on Fifth Avenue, New York, September 1933

Keynes and Keynesianism

Delegates rise to cheer Keynes at the Bretton Woods closing banquet, July 1944

Liberty and American Civilization

Union soldiers with lanterns arrest John Merryman at his farmhouse door, Cockeysville, Maryland, 1861

Liberty versus Power

Gandhi lifts salt from the shore at Dandi, ending the Salt March, 6 April 1930

Ludwig von Mises Archives

Adolf Fischhof addresses students in the Landhaus courtyard, Vienna, 13 March 1848

Ludwig von Mises in One Lesson

Ludwig von Mises rises to walk out of an early Mont Pelerin Society session, Switzerland, late 1940s

Ludwig von Mises, The Man

Artillery officer Ludwig von Mises directs his mountain battery in the snowbound Carpathians, 1916-17

Marx and Marxism

Friedrich Engels reads his eulogy at Karl Marx's grave, Highgate Cemetery, 17 March 1883

Mises and Austrian Economics A Personal View

Ludwig von Mises leads his private seminar at the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, late 1920s

Mises Private Seminar with Robert Murphy

Gas-masked troops advance through the burning Bonus Army camp at Anacostia Flats, Washington, July 1932

Money and the Federal Reserve

Woodrow Wilson signs the Federal Reserve Act as McAdoo, Glass and Owen look on, 23 December 1913

Money, Banking, and the New World Order

Richard Nixon announces the closing of the gold window on television, Oval Office, 15 August 1971

Oral History Project

A Federal Writers' Project interviewer records a formerly enslaved woman's memories on her porch, 1937

Our Enemy, Inflation

Ironworkers rivet girders high on the rising Empire State Building, New York, September 1930

Prosperity, War, and Depression

Dolley Madison directs the rescue of Washington's portrait as the British near, President's House, 1814

Radical Austrianism, Radical Libertarianism

Richard Cobden addresses an Anti-Corn Law League meeting at Covent Garden Theatre, London, 1843

Radical Scholarship

Xiaogang farmers press red thumbprints on their secret land pact by oil lamp, Anhui, November 1978

Reassessing the Presidency

George Washington reviews the militia army against the Whiskey Rebellion, Carlisle, October 1794

Recovery or Stagnation?

Police stop Jacob Coxey's army of the unemployed at the Capitol, Washington, 1 May 1894

Robert LeFevre Commentaries

The captive Atahualpa marks on the wall how high he will fill the room with gold, Cajamarca, 1532

Rothbard Graduate Seminar

Sam Brannan runs through San Francisco waving his hat and shouting news of gold, May 1848

Secession, State, and Economy

Menenius Agrippa tells his fable to the seceded plebeians on the Sacred Mount, Rome, 494 BC

Seminar on Money and Government

Nero watches the Great Fire consume Rome from the Tower of Maecenas, July AD 64

Strategies for Changing Minds Toward Liberty

Benjamin Franklin, in a plain brown coat, is received by Louis XVI at Versailles, 20 March 1778

Taxes Are What We Pay for an Impoverished Society

The boy king Richard II meets Wat Tyler and the poll-tax rebels at Smithfield, 15 June 1381

The 25th Anniversary Celebration

Japanese American children with identity tags wait for the removal bus, Hayward, California, May 1942

The American Economy and the End of Laissez-Faire 1870 to World War II

Leland Stanford swings the maul at the golden spike ceremony, Promontory Summit, Utah, 10 May 1869

The Austrian School of Economics An Introduction

George Stephenson watches the Rocket run at the Rainhill Trials, Lancashire, October 1829

The Bankruptcy of American Politics

Necker addresses the Estates-General before Louis XVI, Versailles, 5 May 1789

The Birth and Death of the Fed

A sick Andrew Jackson tells Van Buren the bank is trying to kill him, but I will kill it, July 1832

The Business Cycle

Crowds fill Wall Street below the Sub-Treasury steps on Black Tuesday, New York, 29 October 1929

The Coming Currency Crisis and the Downfall of the Dollar

Workmen smash and burn the assignat printing plates before a crowd, Place Vendome, Paris, February 1796

The Costs of War

Sir Edward Grey watches the lamps being lit over St James's Park, London, 3 August 1914

The Delusion of Good Government

King Cnut sits at the tideline and commands the sea to halt, Bosham, about 1030

The Economic History of the United States

Sons of Liberty dump East India Company tea into Boston Harbor from Griffin's Wharf, December 1773

The Economic Recovery: Washington's Big Lie

Catherine the Great views Potemkin's showpiece villages from her galley on the Dnieper, 1787

The Economics of Fascism

King Victor Emmanuel III and Mussolini review the Blackshirts from the Quirinal, Rome, 1 November 1922

The Economics of the Civil War

Jefferson Davis throws coins to rioting women during the Richmond Bread Riot, Virginia, April 1863

The Failure of the Keynesian State

James Callaghan tells the Labour conference Britain cannot spend its way out of recession, Blackpool, 1976

The Fed and War Finance

The ragged, unpaid Continental Army marches into Valley Forge, 19 December 1777

The Gold Standard Revisited

William Jennings Bryan ends his Cross of Gold speech, Chicago Coliseum, July 1896

The Great Depression What We Can Learn From It Today

Ellen Wilkinson leads the Jarrow marchers past Marble Arch in the rain, London, 31 October 1936

The History of Economic Thought

Speculators trade John Law's Mississippi Company shares in the Rue Quincampoix, Paris, 1719

The History of Economic Thought: From Marx to Hayek

Lenin speaks from an armoured car to the crowd outside Finland Station, Petrograd, April 1917

The History of Political Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard

Socrates addresses the jurors at his trial, Athens, 399 BC, with young Plato among the listeners.

The Inflationary Path to Despotism

Deputies mob Napoleon in the Orangerie of Saint-Cloud as grenadiers enter, 10 November 1799

The Libertarian Tradition

Emma Goldman is marched to the deportation barge in the snow, Ellis Island, 21 December 1919

The Life, Times, and Work of Ludwig von Mises

Nazi agents with swastika armbands carry Mises's papers out of his Vienna study, March 1938

The Manifesto of Liberty

Ludwig von Mises leads his NYU graduate seminar, New York, early 1950s

The Miracles of Capitalism

Shoppers crowd newly stocked windows the day after the currency reform, West Germany, June 1948

The Mises Circle in Houston 2006

The captured Santa Anna is brought before the wounded Sam Houston at San Jacinto, 22 April 1836

The Mises Circle in Houston 2012

Drillers flee as the Lucas gusher blows in at Spindletop, Texas, 10 January 1901

The Mises Circle in Las Vegas

Julius Caesar wades the Rubicon by torchlight with his legion, January 49 BC

The Mises Circle in New Orleans

Cairo money-changers weigh West African gold as Mansa Musa's caravan passes, July 1324

The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History Lecture Series

Mary Chesnut watches the shelling of Fort Sumter from a Charleston rooftop, 12 April 1861

The Roots of the Fed

Senator Nelson Aldrich and bankers draft a central bank plan at the Jekyll Island Club, Georgia, 1910

The Rosetta Stone to the US Code A New History of Taxation

King John seals Magna Carta before the rebel barons at Runnymede, 15 June 1215

The Trouble with Taxation

Peter the Great cuts off a boyar's beard on his return from Europe, Moscow, August 1698

The Truth About American History An Austro-Jeffersonian Perspective

A Homestead striker behind scrap iron as a Pinkerton barge nears the Monongahela landing, July 1892

The Twentieth Century An Austrian Critique

Truman tells Stalin of the new weapon through interpreter Pavlov, Cecilienhof, Potsdam, July 1945

War: Big Government's Best Friend

Blindfolded Secretary of War Newton Baker draws the first draft number, Washington, 20 July 1917

Why Austrian Economics Matters

The Wright Flyer lifts off its rail with Orville aboard, Kill Devil Hills, 17 December 1903

Why Austrian Economics Matters (Chicago 2011)

Fire hoses turn on job-seekers at Ford's Highland Park gates, Five Dollar Day, January 1914

Will the Decline Continue

Edward Gibbon sits among the Capitol ruins as barefoot friars sing vespers, Rome, 15 October 1764

Section paintings

The banners that open the archive's main pages.

**An impossible conversation in a Vienna café**On Home and About

**The seminar table**On Papers and Articles

**The listening room**Retired from its page

Book covers

Covers designed one at a time, each from a brief on the book's argument.

Cover of A Short History of Paper Money and Banking

The Great American Land Bubble: The Amazing Story of Land-Grabbing, Speculations, and Booms from Colonial Days to the Present Times

A. M. Sakolski

Cover of The Inflation Crisis, and How To Resolve It

Art gallery

Course paintings

Section paintings

Book covers

A Short History of Paper Money and Banking

A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru

A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism

America's Great Depression

America's Second Crusade

An Economic Review of the Patent System

An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain

An Essay on Economic Theory

An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science

Back Door to War: The Roosevelt Foreign Policy 1933-1941

Bureaucracy

Calculation and Coordination: Essays on Socialism and Transitional Political Economy

Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics

Classical Liberalism and the Austrian School

Conceived in Liberty

Defending the Undefendable

Denationalisation of Money: The Argument Refined

Die Gemeinwirtschaft

Dissent on Keynes: A Critical Appraisal of Keynesian Economics

Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth

Economic Controversies

Economics and the Public Welfare

Economics in One Lesson

Economics of the Free Society

Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical