Libertarianism

Brian Doherty, Historian of the Libertarian Movement, Dead at 57

The longtime Reason senior editor accidentally fell to his death in a park along the San Francisco Bay.

Matt Welch | 3.14.2026 7:40 PM

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(Reason)

Brian Doherty, a longtime Reason senior editor and the leading historian of the libertarian movement, was found dead Friday morning after a fall the night before in Battery Yates park along the San Francisco Bay. He was 57.

Doherty, who began working at Reason in 1994, was the author of six books, most notably the definitive 2007 study, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement. Conservative writer Jonah Goldberg called Radicals an "extraordinary accomplishment"; libertarian economist Bryan Caplan dubbed it a "remarkable labor of love."

Doherty's other book-length treatments of libertarian phenomena included Gun Control on Trial: Inside the Supreme Court Battle Over the Second Amendment (2008), Ron Paul's rEVOLution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired (2012), and Modern Libertarianism: A Brief History of Classical Liberalism in the United States (2025).

"Brian was the historian of the libertarian movement," says Reason Foundation President David Nott. "He lovingly and comprehensively portrayed the colorful characters in the libertarian world."

Born in Brooklyn and raised mostly in Florida, Doherty first caught the libertarian bug at age 12 by gobbling up the Illuminatus! trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.

"One of the specific purposes of that work, according to Wilson, was to do to the state what Voltaire did to the church—that is, reduce it to an object of contempt for all thoughtful people," he recalled in 2018. "I wound up mail ordering a copy of the Principia Discordia, the founding........

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