[jocon307]

I thought folks might have some fun with this on a weekend. My daughter and her circle of conservative friends all must chose one extra book to read for this semester's class, so many recommendations here may find an eager reader. I promise to make good notes and pass them on, I'll also try and get her to lurk and read the thread, so we may get her, and some of her buddies, hooked on FR in the process.

How much of a mom do I sound like?

Thanks guys and gals, you know it all!

[pillbox_girl]

Podkayne of Mars by Heinlein

[combat_boots]

Infiltration, by Sperry.

[True Capitalist]

If I were to pick one book it would be:

Paul Johnson: A History of the Americcan People

[lonestar67]

The Case for Democracy
Natan Sharansky

[warchild9]

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy

Every college student should learn about the cyclic nature of history from the very beginning.

[penelopesire]

a few links so she can find other links..lol

http://www.nps.edu/
Naval War College Post Graduate school

Policy review: the lib profs will 'accept' this

http://www.policyreview.org/

my son is in college studying Political Science.. I will ask him and get back to u.

[KC Burke]

International relations, any period in time...they is nothing superior in the conservative universe to:

Reflections on the Revolution in France,
Edmund Burke.

[justche]

It's 20 years old. But From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters is the best book about the Middle East - Arab/Jewish Conflict (over Palestine), that I've ever read.

[Nothometoday]

I would suggest *anything* sociology related.
Also, " history of the United states" may help with background. I have many copies, in both realms.
GOOD luck to your daughter!


BTW, I am a former library assistant, for several years. Hurt my back, now stay home, with a few good walkign days here and there. Any book discussion..I will do my best.

[keithtoo]

MODERN TIMES, Paul Johnson, if she misses this ONE BOOK, all the rest will be lessened.

[HarryCaul]

Somewhat on topic, I just finished _The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World 1700-2000_ by Niall Ferguson. Not strictly about US-foreign relations, but of course that plays a key part.

Very readable, and very relevant to seeing some of the less-discussed aspects of what's going on in world relations today.

For example, this 2001 book has a chapter on the concept of "understretch", the idea that great powers can suffer if they don't spend *enough* on wars. Here's a sample from that chapter (in 2001)-

"The question has frequently been asked and deserves repetition: would it not be desirable for the US to depose tyrants like Saddan and impose democratic government on this coutnries? The idea of invading a country, deposing its dictators, and imposing free elections at gunpoint is generally dismissed as incompatible with American 'values'. A common argument s that the US could never engage in the kind of overt imperial rule practised by Britain in the nineteenth century. Yet is often forgotten that this was precisely what was done in Germany and Japan at the end of the Second World War, and with great and lasting success."

And so on.

Definitely worth a read.

[NavySEAL F-16]

Dereliction of Duty : Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam

America's Thirty Years War: Who is Winning? by Vazsonyi, Balint

A Concise History of the Crusades

What Went Wrong : Approaches to the Modern History of the Middle East

The CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS AND THE REMAKING OF WORLD ORDER Samuel P. Huntington

On China, I would get the several books by Bill Gertz.

[Ragnorak]

"A World Restored" It isn't about US relations but it was written by Henry Kissinger. It covers the Metternich Era. One of the best books I've read.

"Statecraft" by Margaret Thatcher was a great one as well.

[jla]

From TownHall.com Book Club

Foreign Policy

• Jesus in Beijing by David Aikman
• Inside the Asylum by Jed Babbin
• Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Mitchell G. Bard
• Why We Fight by William J. Bennett
• Escape from Slavery by Francis Bok
• So Many Enemies, So Little Time by Elinor Burkett
• Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures by Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlewait, and Andrew Thomson
• The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the 21st Century by Robert Cooper
• Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians by Jerome R. Corsi
• The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz
• Cowboy Capitalism by Olaf Gersemann
• Hating America: The New World Sport by John Gibson
• Hatred's Kingdom by Dore Gold
• The Connection by Stephen F. Hayes
• In Denial: Historians, Communism, & Espionage by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr
• What Went Wrong? by Bernard Lewis
• The Crisis of Islam by Bernard Lewis
• Islam at the Crossroads by Paul Marshall, Roberta Green, and Lela Gilbert
• Our Oldest Enemy by John J. Miller and Mark Molesky
• Breaking the Real Axis of Evil by Mark Palmer
• At Any Price: How America Betrayed My Kidnapped Daughters for Saudi Oil by Patricia Roush
• Reagan's War by Peter Schweizer
• The Case for Democracy by Natan Sharansky
• Confronting Jihad: Israel & the World After 9/11 by Saul Singer
• Can America Survive? by Ben Stein and Phil DeMuth
• Statecraft by Margaret Thatcher
• Countdown to Crisis by Kenneth R. Timmerman
• Preachers of Hate by Kenneth R. Timmerman
• The French Betrayal of America by Kenneth R. Timmerman
• The Sword of the Prophet by Serge Trifkovic
• Rogue State by William C. Triplett III
• Dawn over Baghdad by Karl Zinsmeister

[Tanniker Smith]

FR bookclub ping.

[JerseyHighlander]

Here's a Gutenberg Library free download of Benjamin Franklin's autobiography:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/148.html.utf8.gz

That's just to whet the appetite

And then Van Doren's biography of Franklin, the chapters on his time as the Colonists' representative in England and as US ambassador to France are an interesting read.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0140152601/002-5297798-4768014?v=glance

[saveliberty]

Wow, you have already received lots of great reading recommendations. I haven't read the Paul Johnson book mentioned, but I have read others and I recommend him highly.

Samuel Huntington is required reading in grad school and you can't go wrong there.

I would also recommend Our Oldest Enemy, by Stephen C. Moore. It's a fascinating history of US relations with France and dispels the myths of French friendship and alliance since the dawning of our country. It's quite a shock to read what French governments have tried to do to the US.

[TomSmedley]

Witness by Whitaker Chambers.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

I'll second any recommendation of Paul Johnson -- even the books of his I haven't read, knowing how good the ones I read were.

I'm in the middle of reading and impressed so far by Robert Kagan's Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order. It's really a long essay, more than a book.

P.J. O'Rourke has written a lot of good stuff, but Holiday's in Hell, even if from the 80s is maybe his best.

[blam]

Witness, Whitaker Chambers