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The legacy of English journalist and “self‐taught economist” [1]Thomas Hodgskin (1787–1869) naturally lends itself to scholarly debate: a principled defender of labor and an opponent of capitalism, [2] he was at the same time a radical champion of free‐market competition and the rights of the individual, consistently opposing state power and intervention in all areas of social and economic life. In Alberto Mingardi’s latest book, Classical Liberalism and the Industrial Working Class: The Economic Thought of Thomas Hodgskin, the political historian undertakes to shed new light on this “largely unknown figure.” It may come as something of a surprise to libertarians that Hodgskin is so unsung in the halls of higher learning. Mingardi’s book is a welcome entry, perhaps the most thorough yet, in a catalog of works that have set out to position Hodgskin more firmly in a current of classical liberalism and free‐market economic thought r ....