The Essential Robert Nozick

Robert Nozick was a professor of philosophy at Harvard University. Though he wrote on topics as varied as epistemology, free will, decision theory, and the meaning of life, he is most famous for his contributions to political philosophy, primarily his 1974 book Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Nozick’s book helped establish normative political philosophy in the Anglo-American analytic tradition as a legitimate and robust field within academic philosophy. It also helped establish the classical liberal or libertarian perspective as a viable alternative to redistributive egalitarian liberalism and to socialism. Praise for Anarchy, State, and Utopia’s clear and accessible writing style crossed ideological lines, and it won the National Book Award in 1975. Despite many philosophers’ disagreements with Nozick’s arguments, those arguments could not be ignored. Agree or disagree, Anarchy, State, and Utopia makes thought-provoking arguments that cannot be simply waved away.