An Assertion of Right is a philosophical defense of the individual as a sovereign moral being. It begins from a simple, uncompromising premise: a human being must act in order to exist, and therefore the freedom to perform the fundamental acts of existence cannot legitimately be granted, revoked, or managed by any external authority. Rights are not permissions. They are assertions rooted in the nature of being alive.

From this foundation, the book reconstructs liberty from first principles—thought, will, action, and consequence—showing how personal agency gives rise to responsibility, property, self-defense, and social cooperation. It challenges the inherited assumptions of Hobbes, Locke, and modern political theory, rejecting the idea that authority originates in fear, tradition, or collective will. All legitimate power, it argues, is delegated by individuals and remains bounded by them.

Through analytic argument and illustrative narrative, An Assertion of Right exposes the quiet ways coercion enters human life: through benevolence, expertise, urgency, and moral language. It draws a hard boundary between friction and harm, between persuasion and force, between society and sovereignty. At its core is a claim both radical and ancient—that no institution, ideology, or consensus outranks the individual’s authority over her own existence.

This is not a book about how to govern others.
It is a book about what must never be governed away.

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We first started out as ?The Paperback Exchange,? a chain of physical bookstores where we would part exchange your beloved books for new stories to transport you to faraway places. However, as shopping started to evolve to online shops and marketplaces, we bid our stores goodbye to become ?PBShop.? This transition has only allowed us to blossom as we now ship thousands of titles to book lovers across the globe. We pride ourselves in being a community of local book lovers which allows our passion and devotion to shine in everything we do. In 2020 we not only celebrated our 20th birthday but our 1st birthday as being completely employee owned after becoming an E.O.T in September 2019. We are proud to be different and embrace standing apart on a book mountain by working from a virtual inventory which allows us to provide thousands of books that may be difficult to get for your bookshelf or your studies. Working with a number of different suppliers allows us to explore other avenues such as puzzles, sheet music and even stationery so we really do have something for everyone. Life is about being versatile in all realms of existence. If this is your first visit or you are a returning customer, we would like to welcome you to the PBShop family, for there is no friend as loyal as a book. We are a company who put our customers at the centre of everything we do as we understand the importance of reading because once you learn to read, you will forever be free. There are a whole lot of things in this world of ours that we are yet to explore, which is why we will forever inspire curious minds.

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