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ObjectiveThis article utilizes a replication exercise to evaluate the reliability of the historical time series for top wealth share concentrations in the United Kingdom, as presented in Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty‐First Century (2014a).MethodUsing Piketty's identified source records, an attempt is made to replicate the construction of his time series for top wealth concentrations in the U.K. These results are then compared against the series presented in Capital, and subsequent improvements by other scholars.ResultsPiketty's time series is shown to diverge substantially from its source data from the U.K., and does not appear to be replicable. In particular, Piketty's series introduces a sizable post‐1980 adjustment that suggests a substantially more rapid acceleration of wealth concentration than its source statistics reveal. Issues of reliability in the U.K. time series mirror similar problems with Piketty's wealth estimates for the United States, although their implications for historical interpretation differ in light of subsequent data.ConclusionThese findings indicate that Piketty's account of changing wealth concentrations in the United Kingdom in the 20th century is unreliable for interpreting recent patterns in the evolution of top wealth shares. An alternative interpretation of the source data is therefore offered, pointing to a century‐long L‐shaped pattern in place of Piketty's depicted U‐curve.

From 1816 through to the end of the Civil War, the colonization of emancipated slaves in Africa and the American tropics occupied a prominent place in federal policy discussions. Although colonization has traditionally been interpreted as an aberration in anti-slavery thought on account of its dubious racial legacy and discounted for its impracticality, its political persistence remains a challenge for historians of the antebellum era. This article offers an explanation by identifying a distinctive economic strain of colonization in the moderate anti-slavery advocacy of Mathew Carey, Henry Clay, and Abraham Lincoln. From the nullification crisis until the Civil War, adherents of this strain effectively integrated colonization into the American System of political economy. Their efforts were undertaken to both reconcile their respective anti-slavery views with a raw-material-dependent domestic industrialization program, and to adapt American System insights to an intended program of gradual, compensated emancipation.

On Oct 14, 2014, friends of freedom lost a lifelong champion of classical liberal thought with the passing of Leonard P. Liggio at the age of eighty-one. A deeply knowledgeable history scholar, Liggio was also much more; he was a central figure in building the modern classical liberal intellectual movement in the US and around the world. In a career spanning sixty years, he played a formative role in organizations including the Mont Pelerin Society, the Philadelphia Society, the Institute for Humane Studies, and the Atlas Network. He also taught at several universities and was an advisory scholar for many organizations within the liberty movement. Born on Jul 5, 1933, Liggio traced his interest in political ideas to his childhood and his first classical liberal inclinations to his mother. His interest in peace and in the institutions of a free society that foster it would be an enduring theme of his scholarly and organizational career. Adapted from the source document.

Introduction / Michael J. Douma -- Beyond laissez faire and state power: A critical look at the transformation thesis and classical liberalism in nineteenth century America / Scott Shubitz -- Classical liberalism and the "New" history of American capitalism / Phillip W. Magness -- The historicity of civil liberties, a liberal predicament / Anthony Gregory -- Constituting liberty: Toward a history and science of association / Lenore T. Ealy -- Some roads taken, and not taken, from the Progressive Era to the New Deal / David T. Beito -- A manifesto for liberty: Toward a new history of civil rights in U.S. history / Jonathan Bean -- The end or ends of social history? The reclamation of old fashioned historicism in the writing of historical narratives / Hans Eicholz -- History through a classical liberal feminist lens / Sarah Skwire -- Classical liberalism in Eastern Europe: Very vibrant but so mild / Leonid Krasnozhon and Mykola Bunyk -- "Start the Economy": Causation, emergent order, and social change in the origins of modern economic growth / Matthew Brown -- A non-manifesto of liberal history / Alberto Garín

In this article we explore the intellectual origins of John Maynard Keynes's "Economic Possibilities" by introducing evidence of its parallels to a similar utopian message in H. G. Wells's obscure didactic novel, The World of William Clissold (1926). Drawing upon archival evidence from Keynes and Wells's own contemporary exchanges, we bring to light a largely unnoticed intellectual dialogue between the two authors that took place from roughly 1926 to 1934 through their published works, letters, and public and private conversations. The context provided by this dialogue sheds light upon the authors' shared interests in the "scientific" ordering of society, and in particular a vision of the future that relied heavily upon proactive eugenic planning. These findings point to an under-acknowledged eugenic dimension to Keynes's essay that emerges more openly from his contemporary exchanges with Wells as well as in several unpublished works and letters by both men. In addition to contextualizing a number of the intentionally vague predictions and prescriptions in "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren," these findings establish deeper eugenic commitments in Keynes's beliefs than previously thought and extend them into the mature phase of his economic writing.