Book Shelf.(Liberty Fund Books)(Brief Article)(Company Profile)

The specialization of academic life, along with the preponderance of the Left in colleges and universities, has had a baneful effect that has become so universal as to be almost unnoticeable: It has institutionalized a bias toward the unearthing (if not fabrication) of new truths, half-truths, and even "truths" at the expense of the older verities. One of the most important conservative projects, therefore, should be to restore a healthy focus on what is true, as opposed to what is "ground-breaking."

For this reason, Liberty Fund Books is one of the most valuable endeavors in American publishing. Its goal is to make available-at remarkably low prices-the key works that make up the patrimony of the conservative mind. The large-format, nicely produced two-volume paperback edition of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations still goes for only $15; the 1,700-plus pages of James Bryce's two-volume American Commonwealth for $16.50; political writings of Samuel Johnson, Lord Acton, Michael Oakeshott, Richard Weaver, and other conservative giants, all at similarly rock-bottom prices. This is an antidote to liberal indoctrination that any college student can afford.

Liberty Fund's backlist, then, is something to treasure; but some of its more recent projects are equally impressive. For example, The Founders' Constitution, edited by Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner, is a compilation of the writings of the Framers on key questions of philosophy and political science, arranged as a clause-by-clause commentary on the text of the Constitution. The paperback set-five huge volumes for $60-belongs in every library, but is physically cumbersome, so Liberty Fund helpfully directs readers to a website, http://press- pubs.uchicago.edu/founders, where the entire text can be read for free.

A couple of other recent Liberty Fund publications deserve mention. Some of historian Hugh Trevor-Roper's most interesting essays are ...