GOP Leaders are Readers
Tevi Troy ·
Nov 18, 2010 at 7:00am
Ricochet's own Claire Berlinski will be pleased to learn that her book on Margaret Thatcher is quite popular within the House Republican caucus and its newly elected leaders. You can read about other hot books within the GOP caucus here. Besides the ones listed, what other recent books do Ricochet readers think the GOP leadership should be taking in?
- Comment (20)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (3)
Comments :
Oct '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
My number one recommedation for a new book would be, The New Road to Serfdom: A Letter of Warning to America by Daniel Hannan. (See Peter's interview with Daniel on Uncommon Knowlege. http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=OTg0ZGQ2MWMzY2ZiNDVmYzg1ZmJiNDQ0NTA0OGQ4MjE)
My number one choice for an older book would be Felix Morley's "Freedom and Federalism".
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
How interesting! Thanks Tevi. I wonder: are the House GOPers looking for a new Margaret Thatcher in their ranks? (Way to go Claire!).
Aug '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
We should find out what the democrats are reading !
I can imagine some of the titles:
The Other Side of Midnight, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, Yes ! I Can ! Sammy Davis Jr Autobiography , The Protocols of the Elders of Zion ,
various Lonely Planet guides, old issues of National Lampoon, and the Whole Earth Catalog .
Anybody else had a peek ?
Oct '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
The Forgotten Man by Amity Schlaes
Oct '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
flownover: We should find out what the democrats are reading !
I can imagine some of the titles:
The Other Side of Midnight, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, Yes ! I Can ! Sammy Davis Jr Autobiography , The Protocols of the Elders of Zion ,
various Lonely Planet guides, old issues of National Lampoon, and the Whole Earth Catalog .
Anybody else had a peek ? · Nov 18 at 8:03am
Good question, Sun Tsu.
May '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
The federalist papers
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
The Republic
Soft Despotism Democracy's Drift
Jun '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
"All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis" (starting the story about 30 years ago.)
Sep '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
All politicians, before they die, should read The Death of Plato.
Nov '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
"Liberal Fascism" tops my list, assuming they haven't already read it. Nothing I've read in the past couple of years more clearly illustrates (1) that the Progressive march has been going on a long, long time, is insidious, and will take a long, long time and a lot of cunning to counter, and (2) that conservatives long ago let Progressives frame the debate and define the terms. Until we take the language of the debate back, we cannot beat Progressivism. We'll know we've made a u-turn on the road to serfdom when a leftist pol can no longer toss out a propaganda bomb like "social justice" or "tolerance" or "crony capitalism" and automatically win the debate.
Jun '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
Radical-In-Chief by Stanley Kurtz
The Roots of Obama's Rage by Dinesh D'Souza
The Culture of Corruption by Michelle Malkin
Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg
Lenin, Stalin and Hitler, The Age of Social Catastrophe by Robert Gellately
Magnetic Mountain, Stalinism as a Civilization by Stephen Kotkin (how incompetent central control destroys civilization)
Muslim Mafia by P. David Gaubatz & Paul Sperry - evidence of CAIR's (Council on American-Islamic Relations) and ISNA's (Islamic Society of North America) real agenda
Boyd, The Fighter Pilot Who Changed The Art of War by Robert Coram (Boyd's OODA Loop Theory can and should be applied to politics on the Hill)
Troublesome Young Men, The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England by Lynne Olson
Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas
Broke by Glenn Beck
Last Exit To Utopia, The Survival of Socialism in a Post-Soviet Era by Jean-Francois Revel
The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes
Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley - particularly Huxley's essays on Propaganda in a Democratic Society, Propaganda in a Dictatorship, Brainwashing, Education for Freedom, and What Can Be Done?
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
Thanks for the good comments on what the GOP should read. Some quick responses: Bereket suggested The Forgotten Man. It has been widely read throughout the caucus, as I noted in the original article.
Layla picked Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism. I did not mention it in my piece, but it has also been a popular read among House Republicans, and has had a real influence at times. In fact, Paul Ryan justified his vote for TARP by arguing that Liberal Fascism scared him into it. As Ryan explained, had TARP not passed and the economy fallen subsequently into a “deflationary spiral,” Obama “would have been able to sweep through a huge statist agenda very quickly because there would have been no support for the free-market system."
Nov '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
Brian Watt:
Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley -
Great list, Brian! BNW reminds me to add a book that influenced me tremendously: Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. Definitely a must-read.
The Battle was mentioned in the article; I'm reading that now. It's very good (that is, entertaining and inspiring)--but Thomas Sowell's Economic Facts and Fallacies is even better. A work like Sowell's provides the ammo we need to take back the language and reframe the debate. He blows giant holes right through ideas like "welfare = fairness and social justice." In fact, as he demonstrates, welfare creates a permanent underclass. It's anything but just.
Jun '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
Here's one from left field: the marvelous novel Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. Written in the first-person by an aging Iowa preacher to his young son, it is beautifully written, teaches much about humility (a trait that all politicians need more of), and describes many of the social institutions of fly-over country that many folks on the right and left coasts need to understand better.
Totally agree with The Forgotten Man and anything by Tom Sowell (though Conflict of Visions is the best explanation of the two major competing visions of the world).
Edited on Nov 18, 2010 at 10:48amRe: GOP Leaders are Readers
I am indeed pleased, thank you for letting me know.
Jul '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
That quite diminishes Mr. Ryan in my eyes as he apparently does not understand the economic history that lead Hitler to power.
Books they should read
Vision of the Anointed by Thomas Sowell
Parliament of Whores by P.J. O'Rourke
On the Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith
The Road to Serfdom by F. von Hayek
Democracy in America by A. de Tocqueville
The Conservative Mind by R. Kirk
God and Man at Yale by W.F. Buckley
Witness by W. Chambers
Free to Choose by M. Friedman
The Federalist by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay
Nov '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
FDR's Folly by Jim Powell. Where The Forgotten Man looks more closely at the personalities and individual tragedies or the depression, the Powell book digs much more deeply in the economics and polices of the Roosevelt and Hoover administrations. Both books really ought to be companion pieces.
Jul '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
Tell them to try and read Our Nation's Constitution.
And when they've accomplished that, tell 'em to read It again.
There will be a test on It in two years.
Edited on Nov 18, 2010 at 4:42pmJun '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
Thanks Layla. Here are a few more:
The Lunar Men, Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World by Jenny Uglow (about Matthew Boulton, James Watt, Josiah Wedgewood, Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles) and Joseph Priestly and others who essentially created the Industrial Revolution)
The Solzhenitsyn Reader, New and Essential Writings 1947-2005 (including his controversial but I believe spot-on Harvard commencement address)
Churchill and the Jews, a Lifelong Friendship by Martin Gilbert
The Suicide of Reason, Radical Islam's Threat to the West by Lee Harris
A Debonair Scoundrel (out of print) by Lately Thomas (how Abraham Ruef created a labor party in San Francisco, installed a corrupt mayor and a corrupt board of supervisors and was destroying the city through rampant graft before the great quake and fire of 1906 - lessons to be learned and applied now).
And if I may, a film that should be required viewing for every member of Congress:
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington by Frank Capra - so much of it is as relevant today as it was in 1939, bills that aren't read by senators, graft (earmark for the Willett Dam project), and James Taylor (George Soros?), and so much more.
Oct '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
You Betcha! It's Sarah Palin.
Jul '10
Re: GOP Leaders are Readers
Tevi Troy: "...what other recent books do Ricochet readers think the GOP leadership should be taking in?"
The Ruling Class by Angelo Codevilla
Edited on Nov 18, 2010 at 8:57pm