[dardner]

Organized Crime: The Unvarnished Truth About Government by DiLorenzo, Thomas J.

You can download this book for free at mises.org. So you can take a look at and decide for yourself.
I think this fits for someone with little or no idea of the libertarian or austrian perspective. The book is not overly complicated and while fairly short at about 200 pages it reads like a book half that long. The chapters are short, engaging and don’t really need to be read in order, so this book will work well in the bathroom (where people are most open to new ideas). It has a few typos but they turn out to be hilarious.

You probably wont reference your dissertation with this book but it covers a lot of ground in a manner accessible to almost anyone.