I was reminded by Pat Tinsley of this under-appreciated Hoppe article, The Western State as a Paradigm: Learning from History, published in 1997 and originally delivered as a paper to the Mont Pelerin Society. The paper is an Austro-libertarian interpretation of history, which, according to Tinsley, “covers an amazing amount of ground, tracing the baleful, state-building impact of phenomena as diverse as the Protestant Reformation, the demise of the gold standard, and the rise of positivism. Great essay.”
“The Western State as a Paradigm: Learning from History,” in Paul Gottfried, ed., Politics and Regimes: Religion & Public Life, Vol.30 (1997) (based on a paper presented at the Mont Pelerin Society Regional Meeting, Cape Town, South Africa, September 1995)
