This collection of essays by Friedrich Hayek provides a great overview of his thought. The essays include early pieces on economic issues, essays on the history of economic thought, psychology, epistemology, political theory, and personal reflections. Hayek is best known for "The Road to Serfdom," a cold war anti-socialist tract which I consider his least interesting work. In this collection one discovers the Hayek who developed the analysis of how the diffuse nature of information in society reveals on the one hand why socialism failed, and on the other why entrepreneurship and creativity are critical to the well-being of society. His essay "Competition as a Discovery Procedure," included in this volume, should be required reading on college campuses across the nation. His essay "Why I Am Not a Conservative" provides a clear distinction between the views of a classical liberal (of which Hayek is perhaps the best 20th century examplar) vs. those of a conservative. Because "liberals" in the U.S. have been hostile to free enterprise and because "conservatives" have been relatively supportive of it in the U.S., the classical liberal position has become an esoteric oddity known only to a few. For those of us who believe that the most powerful basis for a just and flourishing society may be found in classical liberalism, its relative obscurity in popular perception is a serious tragedy in the history of thought. There is no better single author from who one can learn an intelligent statement of contemporary classical liberalism than F.A. Hayek. This volume is a comprehensive, digestible introduction to his thought.