A Wide Range of Authors of Diverse Ideas

 The number of authors with substantial ideas is, of course, endless. Listed here are some of the more notable ones, emphasizing those who wrote in recent centuries up to our current time. Over time, a brief description of their lives and their contribution to the legacy of their ideas will be added. Likewise, we welcome suggestions of other authors, even though some limits will have to obtain. While a great deal can be learned from almost any serious scholar, even those antagonistic to our traditions, institutions and ideals, this list will focus on those who have made a distinct contribution to a better understanding of the importance of family and community, independent thinking and free markets, sensible, limited government and a wide range of voluntary and philanthropic activities. Works that foster respect for others and religious belief, a humility and gratitude to our inherited culture, and, overall a free, decent and benevolent society.

A

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

Douglass Adair

John Adams

John Quincy Adams

Konrad Adenauer

Armen Alchian

Fisher Ames

George Anastaplo

Benjamin Anderson

Martin Anderson

St. Thomas Aquinas

Aristotle

Hadley Arkes

Raymond Aron

St. Augustine

B

Irving Babbitt

Hans Urs Balthasar

Edward Banfield

Harry Elmer Barnes

John Barron

Bruce Bartlett

Jacques Barzun

Frederic Bastiat

Peter Bauer

Gary Becker

Arnold Beichman

Bernard Iddings Bell

Hillaire Belloc

William Bennett

George C.S. Benson

Raoul Berger

Henri Bergson

Harold Berman

George Bernanos

Walter Berns

Arthur Bestor

Tom Bethel

Bradley Birzer

William Blackstone

Walter Block

Franz Boehm

Eugen von Boehm-Bawerk

Lord Bolingbroke

Louis Bonald

Robert Bork

Lemuel Boulware

L. Brent Bozell, Sr.

Adda Bozeman

Ray Bradbury

Mel Bradford

Eva Brann

Louis Bredvold

Cleanth Brooks

Orestes Brownson

Yale Brozen

James Buchanan

Patrick Buchanan

James Buckley

William Buckley, Jr

Louis Budenz

J. Budziszewski

Edmund Burke

Jacob Burkhardt

James Burnham

Arthur Burns

C

Taylor Caldwell

John C. Calhoun

Roy Campbell

Glenn Campbell

Fr. Francis Canavan

George W. Carey

Allan Carlson

Andrew Carnegie

John Chamberlain

William Henry Chamberlin

Whitakker Chambers

G.K. Chesterton

Roy A. Childs, Jr.

Winston Churchill

Cicero

Carl von Clausewitz

Harry Clor

Ronald Coase

David S. Collier

Robert Conquest

James Fenimore Cooper

Juan Donoso Cortes

Frederick Copleston

Richard Cornuelle

John Corrington

Ralph Adams Cram

George Crocker

Brian Crozier

Joseph Cropsey

Marquis de Custine

D

Henri Daniel-Rops

Jean Danielou

Martin D’Arcy

D.T. D’Armentano

John Davenport

Donald Davidson

Christopher Dawson

Donald Devine

Martin Diamond

Charles Dickens

John Dickinson

Gottfried Dietze

Aaron Director

Benjamin Disraeli

Rev. James Dobson

Lev Dobriansky

Heimato von Doderer

Justus Doenecke

Herman Dooyerweerd

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Milorad Drachkovitch

Peter Drucker

Allen Drury

E

John East

Max Eastman

Jonathan Edwards

Lee Edwards

Paul Eidelberg

Luigi Einaudi

Mircea Eliade

T.S. Eliot

William Y. Elliott

Joseph Epstein

Ludwig Erhard

Walter Eucken

M. Stanton Evans

F

Robert Faulkner

William Faulkner

Adam Ferguson

Guglielmo Ferrero

Frank Fetter

John Finnis

John Flynn

Samuel Francis

Milton Friedman

Bruce Frohnen

Robert Frost

Lon Fuller

G

Lewis Gann

Garet Garrett

Robert Gates

Friedrich Gentz

Robert George

Edward Gibbon

George Gilder

Basil Gildersleve

Robert Goldwin

Barry Goldwater

Johann Goethe

James Goldsmith

Caroline Gordon

Paul Gottfried

Alfred de Grazia

Alan Greenspan

Romano Guardini

H

Ernest van den Haag

Gottfried von Häberler

Otto von Habsburg

Jonathan Haidt

Alexander Hamilton

Ronald Hamowy

Learned Hand

Victor David Hansen

Anthony Harrigan

Frederick Hart

Jeffrey Hart

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Friedrich Hayek

Henry Hazlitt

Paul Heyne

Will Herberg

Marguerite Higgins

Dietrich von Hildebrand

Gertrude Himmelfarb

Eric Hoffer

Ross J.S. Hoffman

Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Hans Herman Hoppe

Richard Hooker

Walter Hooper

Herbert Hoover

Thomas Howard

Wilhelm von Humboldt

David Hume

Samuel Huntington

William H. Hutt

Charles Hyneman

I

Fred Ikle

Washington Irving

C.P. Ives

J

Jane Jacobs

Harry Jaffa

Stanley Jaki

Henry James

Anthony de Jasay

Robert Jastrow

Philip Jenkins

John Jewkes

Paul Johnson

Samuel Johnson

Bertrand de Jouvenel

Friedrich Juenger

Ernst Juenger

K

Herman Kahn

Donald Kagan

Willmoore Kendall

Paul Kengor

Hugh Kenner

Soren Kierkegaard

James Jackson Kilpatrick

Roger Kimball

William R. Kintner

Jeane Kirkpatrick

Russell Kirk

Israel Kirzner

Frank Knight

Fritz Krämer

Peter Kreeft

Irving Kristol

Erik Kuehnelt-Leddihn

Abraham Kuyper

L

Ludwig Lachmann

Suzanne LaFollette

Victor Lasky

Rose Wilder Lane

Ernest Lefever

Donald Lavoie

Gustave LeBon

Bruno Leoni

Ralph Lerner

C.S. Lewis

Leonard Liggio

Walter Lippmann

John Lukacs

Henri du Lubac

Arnold Lunn

Edward Luttwak

Andrew Lytle

Eugene Lyons

M

James McClellan

Forrest McDonald

Walter McDougall

Ralph McInerny

Alistair MacIntyre

Tibor Machan

Fritz Machlup

James Madison

Daniel Mahoney

Joseph de Maistre

Pierre Manent

Henry Manne

Clarence Manion

Harvey Mansfield

Gabriel Marcel

Jacques Maritain

George Marsden

John Marshall

Allan Meltzer

Herman Melville

H.L. Mencken

Carl Menger

Frank Meyer

John Milton

Kenneth Minogue

Ludwig von Mises

Thomas Molnar

Paul Elmore More

Oskar Morgenstern

Raymon Moley

Felix Morley

Gustave de Molinari

Montesquieu

Marion Montgomery

Gouverneur Morris

Alfred Mueller-Armack

Adam Heinrich Mueller

Malcolm Muggeridge

Robert Mundell

Charles Murray

John Courtney Murray

Robert Musil

N

John Henry Newman

Richard John Neuhaus

Reinhold Niebuhr

Gerhart Niemeyer

Robert Nisbet

William Niskanen

Albert J. Nock

Robert Novak

Michael Novak

Robert Nozick

G. Warren Nutter

O

Michael Oakeshott

Flannery O’Connor

Edmund Opitz

Jose Ortega y Gasset

George Orwell

Elinor Ostrom

Vincent Ostrom

Gerald O’Driscoll

P

George Panichas

Henry Paolucci

Fr. Stanley Parry

John Dos Passos

Charles Peirce

Stefan Pejovich

Jaroslav Pelikan

Walker Percy

Sylvester Petro

Howard Phillips

Max Picard

Michael Polanyi

John Polkinghorne

Karl Popper

Richard Posner

Stefan Possony

Ezra Pound

R

Paul Rahe

Ralph Raico

John Randolph

John Crowe Ransom

Henry Regnery

William Rehnquist

Charles Rice

William Rickenbacker

Paul Ricoeur

Philip Rieff

Mario Rizzo

Paul Craig Roberts

Ben Rogge

Herb Rommerstein

Wilhelm Röpke

H.R. Rookmaaker

Stanley Rosen

Murray Rothbard

David Nelson Rowe

Jacques Rueff

Alexander Ruestow

George Rutler

Rousas Rushdoony

Claes Ryn

S

Ellis Sandoz

Jean-Baptiste Say

Dorothy Sayers

Antonin Scalia

Francis A. Schaefer

Fr. James Schall

Willi Schlamm

Carl Schmitt

Helmut Schoeck

Robert Schuchman

Alfred Schuetz

Joseph Schumpeter

George Schuyler

Fred Schwarz

Walter Scott

Roger Scruton

Paul Seabury

Arthur Seldon

Amartya Sen

John Senior

Hans Sennholz

William Shakespeare

B.B. Shenoy

Bishop Fulton Sheen

Edward Shils

Paul Shorey

Bernard Siegan

S. Fred Singer

Julian Simon

Yves Simon

W. Cleon Skousen

Adam Smith

Vernon Smith

Joe Sobran

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Pitrim Sorokin

Hernando de Soto

Thomas Sowell

Louis Spadaro

Robert Speaght

Herbert Spencer

Oswald Spengler

Peter Stanlis

James FitzJames Stephen

George Stigler

Herbert Storing

Gerald Stourzh

Leo Strauss

Robert Strausz-Hupe

Richard von Strigl

Luigi Sturzo

William Graham Sumner

Walter Sullivan

Thomas Szasz

T

Robert Taft

Roger Taney

Charles Tansill

Allen Tate

John Taylor of Caroline

Edward Teller

Margaret Thatcher

Clarence Thomas

Cornelius Van Til

Alexis de Tocqueville

Ralph de Toledano

Stephen Tonsor

JRR Tolkien

Gordon Tullock

Mark Twain

Leopold Tyrmand

U

Evelyn Underhill

Freda Utley

V

Paul Valery

Sheldon Vanauken

Balint Vazsonyi

Peter Viereck

George Viksnins

Eliseo Vivas

Eric Voegelin

W

Fr. Edmund Walsh

A.A. Walters

Jude Wanniski

Richard Dixie Walker

Leon Walras

Robert Penn Warren

Wilcomb Washburn

Richard Weaver

Simone Weil

Eudora Welty

Edward George West

Nathaniel Weyl

Thomas Woods

Friedrich von Wieser

Aaron Wildavsky

Frederick Wilhelmsen

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Walter Williams

George Will

Ralph K. Winter

Rene de Visme Williamson

Francis Graham Wilson

James Q. Wilson

Owen Wister

Karl Wittvogel

P.G. Wodehouse

Tom Wolfe

Y

Leland Yeager