It’s here, the booklet I am sure you have all been waiting for. The one which Gigi Foster and Michael Baker slaved over for 10 months. It is also on Kindle. It is dedicated to all the victims of the Panic, in poor countries and rich countries. They include our children, the lonely, and the poor.
The short publisher blurb: How to make sense of the astonishing upheaval of Spring 2020 and following? Normal life – in which expected rights and freedoms were taken for granted – came to be replaced by a new society as managed by a medical/ruling elite that promised but failed to deliver virus mitigation, all in the name of public health. Meanwhile, we’ve lost so much of what we once had: travel freedoms, privacy, a democratic presumption of equality, commercial freedoms, and even the access to information portals. Something has gone very wrong.
The longer blurb that our publisher chose for it is over the fold! There is also a website that will tell you where book launches will take place, which bookstores sell it, and who has liked it sofar.
To make sense of it all, the Brownstone Institute is pleased to announce the publication of The Great Covid Panic: What Happened, Why, and What To Do Next, by Paul Frijters, Gigi Foster, and Michael Baker. Combining rigorous scholarship with evocative and accessible prose, the book covers all the issues central to the pandemic and the disastrous policy response, a narrative as comprehensive as it is intellectually devastating. In short, this is THE book the world needs right now.
In the Great Panic of early 2020, nearly every government in the world restricted the movement of its population, disrupted the education of its children, suspended normal individual liberties, hijacked its healthcare system, and in other ways increased its direct control of people’s lives. Attempts to control the new coronavirus in most countries made the number of deaths from both the virus and other health problems rise. Some countries and regions snapped out of the madness in early 2021 or even before. Yet other governments, still in 2021, were ever more fanatically obsessed with control.
Why did 2020 become, so suddenly and so forcefully, a year of global panic over a virus that for most people is barely more dangerous than a standard-issue flu virus? This book reveals how the madness started, what kept it going, and how it might end. This is also a book about stories and experiences, some real and some fictionalized to protect identities. Join Jane the complier, James the decider, and Jasmine the doubter, the three core protagonists of the narrative part of the book. Their experiences illustrate what happened to individuals and through them to whole societies, telling us — if we care to listen — how to avoid a repeat. This literary presentation is mixed with detailed reports of the actual data and deep research that has generally been obscured in the midst of media madness and obfuscation by public-health authority.
“A tour-de-force on how the pandemic response was driven by fear, crowd thinking, big business and a desire for control, rather than by sound public health principles. This is bound to be a classic.” ~ Professor Martin Kulldorff, Harvard Medical School
“When I received the manuscript, I was hooked from the first page and knew then that I would miss a full night’s sleep. I did indeed. My heart raced from beginning to end. As the publisher, I must say that this book is a dream for me, the book I never thought would exist, the book that I believe can change everything.” ~ Jeffrey Tucker, Founder Brownstone Institute.
International product supply in a reasonable time is now just a slick marketing spiel, I’m afraid.
Certainly I wish to purchase and read this. Your earlier article on the uselessness of masks has convinced me that objectivity may yet live.
So is electronic supply of this book in the form of a purchaseable pdf under consideration ? I recognise this question arouses fear of dissemination of illegal copies but allowing opening of the pdf only by a pc connected to the purchasing email address or some such works ok. Printing can be disabled with current pdf technology.
Kindle is both messy and really difficult to read.
Hi Ian,
there is also an Australian Amazon site (https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1630692778) which should be able to deliver quicker if it is in stock! (Though it seems already to have sold out there). We dont have a kindle version, unfortunately. Such things are the decision of our US publisher so if there is enough demand it will happen. Ditto with pdf. As an author it means a lot less hassle for me, but also less control.
we understand an e-book is likely to come out next week. That will be useful because the printed book is now already sold out on Amazon in Australia, the US, and the UK.
The sell-out is frustrating but it is encouraging news. Congratulations to you Paul and to your co-authors. I am old-fashioned and will probably wait for the next print run. My most recent reading on Covid matters, by the way, is Julius Ruechel.
Thanks for the reply, pf. As I expected, however, supply is unavailable.
Did the US publishers underestimate demand, or simply doubted that a large, literate audience for this type of information actually existed ? Most likely, a small(ish) run limits their risk – and the irritations of author and audience this causes be hanged.
I will add that in the ubiquitous demand/supply equation, it is supply that is most generally limited. My long-term experiences in managing geological input into large mining operations was sufficient here. The famous essay I, Pencil has opened the minds of all who first read it [https://mises.org/library/i-pencil]
Hi Ian,
yes, book availability is on and off though sales have been pretty good so far so enough is getting through.
There is a kindle version now in case you are interested: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B09FT8KXBW/ref=kinw_dp_ke
[short update]
translation into several non-English languages is now underway, initiated and organised by outside demand. The first instances of censorship on Facebook to content in the book have now also been sighted and documented.