June 7, 2024 10:40AM # David Boaz and the Ideas of Liberty By [Gabriela Calderon de Burgos](https://www.cato.org/people/gabriela-calderon-de-burgos) --- SHARE Listen to this article Generated with [ ElevenLabs](https://elevenlabs.io/) AI technology. Loading the [Elevenlabs Text to Speech](https://elevenlabs.io/text-to-speech) AudioNative Player... ![David Boaz in his early days at Cato.](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/public/2024-06/David%20Boaz%20in%20the%20library.jpeg?itok=8IDdbzMG) I met David Boaz when I was an intern at Cato during the summer of 2004. He was such a great speaker. Soon, I found out he was also a great writer. One of the first books I read about classical liberalism was David’s *The Libertarian Reader*. This was the first time I read John Stuart Mill, Isabel Paterson, Richard Epstein, Mary Wollstonecraft, Benjamin Constant, Frederick Douglas, Charles Murray, Lao-Tzu, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand de Jouvenel, and so many others. Looking back at my *Libertarian Reader* copy from that summer, I now realize that my personal library is filled with books that I was inspired to read after being introduced to these authors that summer by David’s fabulous guide to libertarian/​classical liberal thought. After my internship, I became the editor of Cato’s Spanish-language publications, including the Institute’s Spanish-language website, [www​.elca​to​.org](http://www.elcato.org). I was always surprised by David’s attention to detail, especially when he noticed a comma was misplaced in a text in Spanish. In a way, David has embodied what Cato strives to be: a clear, clean, and precise presentation of libertarian/​classical liberal thought. ##### Related Tags [Libertarianism](https://www.cato.org/libertarianism) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).