A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (And Some Bears)

How the tiny town of Grafton, NH, became a radical experiment in small government--until the bear attacks started. Once upon a time, a group of libertarians got together and hatched the Free Town Project, a plan to take over an American town and completely eliminate its government. In 2004, Grafton, NH, a barely populated settlement with one paved road, turned that plan into reality. Public funding for pretty much everything shrank: the fire department, the library, the schoolhouse. State and federal laws didn't disappear, but they got quieter: meek suggestions barely heard in the town's thick wilderness. The bears, on the other hand, were increasingly visible. Grafton's freedom-loving citizens ignored hunting laws and regulations on food disposal. They built a tent city, in an effort to get off the grid. And with a large and growing local bear population, conflict became inevitable. A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear is both a screwball comedy and the story of a radically American commitment to freedom. Full of colorful characters, puns and jokes, and one large social experiment, it is a quintessentially American story, a bearing of our national soul.

• | Author: Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling
• | Publisher: PublicAffairs
• | Publication Date: September 15, 2020
• | Number of Pages: 288 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 1541788516
• | ISBN-13: 9781541788510