In December last year, Jim was approached regarding a collection of essays he had assembled to introduce people to classical liberalism. Fortuitously, a contact in the Berlin-based Friedrich Nauman Foundation was looking for a book that could be used in a course on liberalism that they were promoting across Africa. Jim's collection, entitled The Liberal Tide: From Tyranny to Liberty, filled the bill nicely.

     Meanwhile The Institute for Liberal Values, a new organization (financed by a small group of local New Zealanders), was born. This organization has become the official publisher of The Liberal Tide. This book includes excerpts from Frédéric Bastiat, Ludwig von Mises, Lysander Spooner, and James Buchanan — along with essays by Jim Peron himself, Barbara Branden, Frank Chodorov, Doug Bandow, Leonard Read, Dwight Lee, Detmar Doering and Mario Vargas Llosa.

     The book was first published in South Africa in co-operation with the Free Market Foundation in Johannesburg; and copies were distributed in South Africa as well as in Zimbabwe, Kenya and other African nations. A German translation is now being considered.

     In New Zealand alone, some 800 copies were pre-purchased out of a first print run of 5,000. A few thousand additional copies were purchased overseas. It is also available through Laissez Faire Books. (You may order by clicking on the LFB logo in ISIL's Store (www.isil.org/store). ISIL receives a commission on LFB book sales).

     After the book project was launched, the Institute for Liberal Values then opened a resource-rich website which very quickly and unexpectedly took on an international flavor. Visitors from around the world dropped in regularly to down-load essays, articles and books. Various articles written by Jim for the Foundation for Economic Education and other organizations had been translated into various languages (mostly Spanish), and these were added to the web site to accommodate non-English speaking visitors. In 2003, page downloads from the site in the second quarter have more than doubled from the first quarter.

     The Institute also launched a program of sending out editorial pieces to the various media outlets. And while this has been a difficult market to crack, three newspapers have published ILV editorials including the New Zealand Herald, the largest newspaper.

     A booklet series was also launched. First on the list was an inexpensive, local edition of Bastiat's classic The Law. Then an essay of Jim's "What the Greens Really Want" was published. And a booklet version of the introduction and first chapter of The Liberal Tide was published as well.