This book is a handy, one-volume compilation of Herbert Spencer self-abridged "Social Statics" and his late-in-life volume of political essays, "The Man Versus the State." This is the one volume of Spencer that every libertarian should own and read. Not just historical-minded scholars, or philosophes, but every libertarian. The revised and abridged "Social Statics" is a concise restatement of his classic text, one of the most important works of individualist liberalism, far and away as important to political philosophy as J.S. Mill's "On Liberty." And the four essays in "The Man Versus the State" reflect the reality of liberalism as it was repositioning itself as a form of socialism. Spencer was a hold-out, and this volume trenchantly expresses his vexation, and marks out the territory that political libertarians would, in 50 years, come to claim as their own. ( )