As I sat at a traffic light and observed another motorist talking on a cell phone, I recalled Albert Jay Nock's observations in "Snoring as a Fine Art." Like the English novelists Kingsley Amis and Evelyn Waugh, Nock thought that most of the world's problems were caused by people who were too busy, and that the world be a better place if there were less meddling, less anxious do-gooding, and more sleeping, preferably a European siesta after lunch.

John Henry Newman foresaw the modern mentality which knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. Our untraditional "busy-ness" robs us of the introspection and philosophic habit of mind which Newman thought was the purpose of education. Now the cell phones keep us from even one minute of reflection. For once I agreed with Emerson: "Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind."

Nock lived in the progressive era of the early 20th century, the era of Wilson and FDR, whose Leftist militarism, interventionism, and Puritanism were enough to make any man bitter. In these essays he provided what his collectivist age needed -- a healthy dose of skepticism and individualism. Although I agree with Henry Regnery that Nock advanced the conservatism of his time, many of his ideas now look less like conservatism and more like prescriptions for loneliness and isolation. Nowhere did I see a defense of the social group, which has always been the root of conservatism.

His welcome comments in favor of civilization and the humane life contradict his comments in favor of liberty and equality without limitation. What Nock calls radicalism and anarchism do not lead to the humane life or to civilization. Although he quotes Burke, he overlooks Burke's emphasis on ordered liberty. Nock's view that the state is the enemy is a libertarian, rather than a conservative, opinion. Where Nock spends a great deal of time upset at the world, conservatives tend to accept things as they are, with an eye to the smaller satisfactions of limited freedom in a fallible world, a world which often thwarts human desire and ambition. Nock seems to have overlooked the self-evident truth that mankind does not naturally lean toward the angelic, a failing which, according to Alexander Hamilton, makes government necessary in the first place.

There is more than a little Marxism in Nock's attempt to separate Americans into clear categories of upper, middle, and low, and to define them in reference to the idea of exploitation. His desire for equality, moreover, contradicts his desire for a Remnant. On the one hand, he ascribes to the critic the holy vocation of encouraging the Remnant; on the other, he describes himself as superfluous.

Thus there is a mercurial quality to Nock's essays, a curious combination of exaggeration, despair, and an optimism which seems forced and ideal rather than grounded in everyday life. It may be that Nock attained some peace late in life, that he was able to accept men as they are. But that acceptance is the exception rather than the norm in his writing, and usually gives way to an unsatisfying ambivalence.

Albert Jay Nock was perhaps one of the only three truly enduring bellettrists 20th century American letters yielded up. He deployed a truly lyric and insinuating prose style of uncommon grace and oddly puckish wit, and it served to unfurl one of the rarest of American minds - a shamelessly recalcitrant individualist whose intellectual evolution never obstructed or abrogated the core of the man: that the individual deserved his long-stolen propers; that the lowest common denominator should be tolerated but not consecrated or canonised; and, above all, that the State was an organism worthy of that which its crimes ever deserves: the fear and loathing of any and every man and woman who cares a whack about his or her fellows. To read him is a singular joy. And you will find no more sensible or beautifully-balanced introduction to the man and his singularity of writing than in this volume which Mr. Hamilton has composed with uncommon brilliance.

This is a wonderful collection of some of Nock's finest essays. It offers a great insight into one of the most brilliant (and overlooked) minds of the 20th century. He is a very gifted writer and a truly dedicated lover of liberty. If you enjoyed "Our Enemy The State" you will surely cherish this book.