I hope readers will forgive me for a little conflict-of-interest post.
A few weeks ago, my Institute celebrated its annual dinner in Milan. In this occasion, we award the annual “Bruno Leoni Prize”. Conceived to honor the memory of Bruno Leoni, the Prize has been awarded, this year, to Richard Pipes,one of the great historians of our times. Pipes, who taught at Harvard from 1958 to 1996, has been one of the most penetrating scholars of the Russian Revolution and communism. At age 92, he has just authored a new book on Alexander Jakovlev .

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One of his books most dear to libertarians is Property and Freedom, a remarkable tour de force in the history of property.

We taped Pipes’s speech at the dinner. It is short but very much worth seeing. As a great sage, he reconnects his escape from Nazi-invaded Poland (read his remarkable autobiography Vixi. Memoirs of a Non-Belonger) to his political philosphy. The video is here and I think it is very much worth watching.