In this selected collection of his syndicated newspaper columns, Walter E. Williams once again takes on the left wing's most sacred cows with provocative insights and brutal honesty. He offers his sometimes controversial views on education, health, the environment, government, law and society, race, and a range of other topics, always with an uncompromising reverence for personal liberty and the principles laid out in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. His views are mostly libertarian, with just a few disappointments.

Do we want socialized medicine? Do peace treaties produce peace? What's wrong with education? What's discrimination? Do we really care about children? Is this the America we want? Williams answers these and other provocative questions with his usual unflinching candor. Although many of these thoughtful, hard-hitting essays focus on growth of government and loss of liberty, many others demonstrate how tools of free market economics can be used to improve our lives in ways ordinary people can understand, not just in the realm of trade and cost of goods and services, but in such diverse areas as racial discrimination and national defense. Paperback, 377 pages, list price $15.00, Laissez Faire price, $10.00.

Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University and a nationally syndicated columnist.