Inquiry Magazine was a libertarian

Libertarianism

Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...

 magazine published from November 1977 to 1984. It was originally published by the Cato Institute

Cato Institute

The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...

, but in February 1982 was transferred to the Libertarian Review Foundation

Libertarian Review

Libertarian Review was a libertarian magazine published until 1981. It had been established by Robert Kephart in 1972 as a book-review magazine, initially titled SIL Book Review , then Books for Libertarians, and was renamed with the October, 1974 issue...

, after the Libertarian Review was merged into Inquiry in January of that year. The magazine originally was published 'semi-monthly', with about 20 issues per year in its first four and a half years of publication (November 1977 thru April 82), and each issue about 32 pages long. With the May 82 issue, Inquiry was retitled Inquiry: A Libertarian Review and went monthly, with each issue at least 48 pages long. In 1984, it went to 10 issues a year, with 2 'double issues'.

It was edited first by Williamson Evers

Williamson Evers

Williamson M. "Bill" Evers is an American political activist and education researcher. In 1988, he became a resident scholar at Stanford University's Hoover Institution -- first as a national fellow, then a visiting scholar, and most recently a research fellow...

, then by Glenn Garvin, and finally by Doug Bandow

Doug Bandow

Douglas Bandow is a former columnist with Copley News Service and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He resigned from Cato in 2005 due a scandal involving payments for columns from lobbyist Jack Abramoff and wrote about it in the Los Angeles Times. As of March 2009, Bandow is again working at...

. At different points in its history, its editorial staffers included Mark Paul, Jonathan Marshall, and Jack Shafer

Jack Shafer

Jack Shafer covers media for Reuters.com Opinion section. Prior to joining Reuters, he edited and wrote the column Press Box for Slate, an online magazine. Before his stay at Slate, Shafer edited two city weeklies, Washington City Paper and SF Weekly...

.

Established along with Cato, Inquiry was initially a biweekly journal of investigative reporting and libertarian-oriented opinion. The magazine was aimed at libertarians and at liberals and leftists critical of state power. It featured regular columns by Nat Hentoff

Nat Hentoff

Nathan Irving "Nat" Hentoff is an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media and writes regularly on jazz and country music for The Wall Street Journal....

 on civil liberties

Civil liberties

Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...

 and Thomas Szasz

Thomas Szasz

Thomas Stephen Szasz is a psychiatrist and academic. Since 1990 he has been Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. He is a well-known social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, and of the social...

 on psychiatry

Psychiatry

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

, foreign reporting by Penny Lernoux

Penny Lernoux

Penny Lernoux was an American journalist and author.Lernoux was born into a comfortable Roman Catholic family in California and excelled in school...

, and CIA exposes by such writers as David Wise and Fred Landis. It included extensive cultural coverage as well, including reviews by Anthony Burgess

Anthony Burgess

John Burgess Wilson  – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...

 and film criticism by Stephen Harvey

Stephen Harvey

Stephen C. Harvey is a structural biologist with research interest in nucleic acids, the ribosome, virus structure and high density lipoprotein. He is currently professor and Georgia Research Alliance eminent scholar in the at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia...

. Its poetry editor was Dana Gioia

Dana Gioia

-Poetry:It was as a poet that Gioia first began to attract widespread attention in the early 1980s, with frequent appearances in The Hudson Review, Poetry, and The New Yorker. In the same period, he published a number of essays and book reviews...

.

During its run, it made available bound collections of issues from its first four volumes (77-78, 78-79, 79-80, 80-81).