Alex Epstein’s Torch—and His Advice for Writers

I met Alex Epstein 25 years ago at a philosophy conference. He was then a student at Duke University, and I was working on my first book, Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It. We quickly became friends. And he gave me helpful feedback on a draft of my manuscript.

After graduating from Duke, Alex began writing professionally and soon moved to Richmond, VA, a few blocks from where my wife, Sarah, and I were living. We spent a lot of time together, and it was a joy to see him develop during his early years as a professional intellectual.

A few years later, when I launched The Objective Standard, Alex was one of the first people to write for the journal. I loved working with him. His mind burned with the brightness of Wyatt’s Torch. And, fittingly, while doing research for one of his TOS articles, “Vindicating Capitalism: The Real History of the Standard Oil Company,” he became fascinated with the field that would become his main intellectual focus in the years ahead: energy and industrial progress.

In time Alex would found the Center for Industrial Progress and write two world-changing books: The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels and Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less. With these and related projects, Alex changed—and continues changing—the way people think about energy and industry. Rather than regarding them as necessary evils, more and more people are seeing them as necessary goods.

If only there were more Alexes addressing other vital subjects.

Well, there can be. Indeed you could be one—if you want to and decide to learn what you’d need to learn.

One of the main characteristics of a top-notch intellectual is the ability to write clearly and objectively. And in the following article, I share Alex’s advice about how you can rise to that level (full disclosure, he says some nice things about me): “Alex Epstein on How to Excel as a Writer.”

Check it out if you’re interested. And if you know others who might be, feel free to pass it along.