Free Republic

Duke University historian Nancy MacLean, not content to do slap and tickle histories, has gone on to trivialize a malady that afflicts millions. "Nancy MacLean, the Duke University historian who wrote Democracy in Chains, the deeply conspiratorial and much-criticized biography of public choice economist James Buchanan, told an audience in New York last week that Buchanan and other early leaders of the limited-government movement 'seem to be on the autism spectrum,'" Robby Soave reports on Reason.com. "According to MacLean, there is a connection between autism and libertarianism, and that connection is not feeling 'solidarity or empathy,' and having 'kind of...

... Suggesting that climate scientists are pushing a line about global warming because their salaries depend on it is a popular talking point that deniers love to throw around. But why do so many “sceptics”, particularly those who form part of the organised machinery of climate science denial, feel comfortable in accusing climate scientists of only being in it for the money? Duke University history professor Nancy MacLean suggests some answers in her new book Democracy in Chains: the Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. The book documents how wealthy conservatives, in particular petrochemical billionaire Charles...