NEW YORK, April 13, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Manhattan Institute has announced Philip Hamburger, author of Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (University of Chicago Press), as the winner of this year's Hayek Book Prize. The prize celebrates authors who best represent the universality and timeliness of the principles of F.A. Hayek. Mr. Hamburger will receive a $50,000 award and will deliver the annual Hayek lecture in New York in early June.
"This is a great honor," said Philip Hamburger. "It is very gratifying—not least as it would seem to suggest that someone read my book. Hayek understood that the threats to liberty come as much from within as from without, and the threat from administrative power is very serious."
"Hayek feared the rise of the administrative state, and therefore feared modern tolerance of the executive branch habit of issuing binding 'laws,'" said Donald Boudreaux, Hayek Prize jury member.
"Whether the issue is energy regulation or the executive order," said Amity Shlaes, Hayek Prize winner and jury chair, "the source and legality of laws is the number one challenge to business today. Hamburger's volume could not be timelier. As Hayek himself noted, the law itself can come to conflict with the rule of law. That is what is happening now."
This year, a second award for excellence in Hayek scholarship will be given to Bruce Caldwell, editor of F.A. Hayek's The Market and Other Orders (The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek) (University of Chicago Press).
"Over the years the jury has been torn over the high quality of both academic books and popular books. We are thrilled that the Manhattan Institute and Thomas and Diane Smith have thought to honor Hayek scholarship specifically with this major prize," said Shlaes.
"I am pleased and humbled to win the Hayek Scholarship Prize," said Dr. Caldwell.
"For more than a decade, the Manhattan Institute has been proud to honor authors whose books exemplify Hayekian principles," said Lawrence Mone, President of the Manhattan Institute. "We welcome Philip Hamburger to that list of authors. We are also thrilled to be able to extend an additional award for Hayek scholarship to Bruce Caldwell."
The Hayek Book Prize is awarded in New York each year. The finalists for this year's prize were:
- Private Governance: Creating Order in Economic and Social Life, by Edward Peter Stringham (Oxford University Press)
- The Rule of Nobody: Saving America from Dead Laws and Broken Government, by Philip K. Howard (W.W. Norton & Company)
- Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies, by Cesar Hidalgo (Basic Books)
- The Logic of the Market: An Insider's View of Chinese Economic Reform, by Weiying Zhang (Cato Institute Press)
- Is Administrative Law Unlawful?, by Philip Hamburger (The University of Chicago Press)
- The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government, by Richard A. Epstein (Harvard University Press)
About the Hayek Lecture and Book Prize
Political philosopher and Nobel laureate F. A. Hayek, author of groundbreaking works such as The Road to Serfdom and The Constitution of Liberty, was the key figure in the twentieth century revival of classical liberalism. He was also a formative influence on Manhattan Institute. When our founder, Sir Antony Fisher, asked how best to reverse the erosion of freedom, Hayek advised him not to begin with politics per se but to fight first on the battlefield of ideas. The Hayek Lecture and Prize affirm and celebrate this mission.