Top Ten Conservative Books

To: DesignerChick

"As a Man Thinketh" by James Allen.

It's not specifically conservative, but an excellent, and short, read.

21 posted on 08/06/2006 6:35:06 PM PDT by Reaganesque

To: DesignerChick

After the Fountainhead I don't know if I can do another Rand book.
Is it that good?

I read The Fountainhead once. I've probably read Atlas Shrugged six times cover-to-cover, and looked at sections countless times. I quoted from it on Rush's show once regarding socialized medicine You have to remember that Rand wrote this in the 50s. She nails socialized medicine, and all sorts of government meddling. You'll love the "Equalization of Opportunity Bill," and the Anti-Dog-eat-dog bill!" Her villains are amazingly real.

ML/NJ

22 posted on 08/06/2006 6:37:57 PM PDT by ml/nj

pages of inane polemics

Maybe you could share with us one or two things that strike you as "inane polemics." (Please with emphasis on the word "inane.")

ML/NJ

23 posted on 08/06/2006 6:41:30 PM PDT by ml/nj

To: DesignerChick

The Law by Frederic Bastiat

Available on Line, Click Link

Best regards,

24 posted on 08/06/2006 6:43:09 PM PDT by Copernicus (A Constitutional Republic revolves around Sovereign Citizens, not citizens around government.)

To: DesignerChick

The Law-Fredric Bastiat

25 posted on 08/06/2006 6:49:30 PM PDT by nonliberal (Graduate: Curtis E. LeMay School of International Relations)

To: MaryFromMichigan

The Way Things Ought to Be See I Told You So

That was going to be my reply also. Any time I pick them up to move them or whatever, I can't resist tearing into a couple of chapters before putting them back down. It's a shame he hasn't done more.

26 posted on 08/06/2006 6:50:12 PM PDT by somemoreequalthanothers (All for the betterment of "the state", comrade)

To: DesignerChick

It's got a rabid cult following. I read through about 1/2 of it, and decided that the next time someone looked at someone else "mockingly", I was putting the book down. It took something like three pages.

I found the characters wooden and her philosophy heavy-handed and sophmoric.

That being said, there are people here on FR that absolutely love it. It would probably be good to get their viewpoint. I have basic disagreements with her philosophy of self-interest.

27 posted on 08/06/2006 6:50:47 PM PDT by Richard Kimball (The most important thing is sincerity. Once you can fake that, everything else is easy.)

To: DesignerChick; All

28 posted on 08/06/2006 6:51:14 PM PDT by Oztrich Boy

To: DesignerChick

All of Thomas Sowell's work

All of Theodore Dalrymple's books

29 posted on 08/06/2006 6:54:39 PM PDT by Chickensoup (S)

and Fountainhead... We the Living is also very good.

30 posted on 08/06/2006 6:56:28 PM PDT by Chode (American Hedonist ©®)

To: DesignerChick

31 posted on 08/06/2006 6:56:40 PM PDT by GeorgiaYankee

To: DesignerChick

I recommend Ann Coulter's books...I really liked Slander and Godless.

Laura Ingraham's book Shut Up & Sing was a really good book.

Also, with so much attention on our court system lately its book to look back at Robert Bork's book written after his USSC nomination called The Tempting of America.

32 posted on 08/06/2006 6:58:50 PM PDT by fkabuckeyesrule

To: DesignerChick

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn

33 posted on 08/06/2006 7:12:47 PM PDT by RFC_Gal (It's not just a boulder; It's a rock! A ro-o-ock. The pioneers used to ride these babies for miles!)

To: DesignerChick

Others have already recommended "Free to Chose" by Milton Friedman (and I think his wife Rose is co-author), truly an excellent book.

Someone recommended "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis, but that book is really what the title suggests. One of the best books I've ever read, and one of the very few I'm sure I'll read again, but it is a book about religion, not politics. And it is wonderfully titled, I'd like to think even lefty Christians would love it, but I may over-estimate them. Or maybe I just need to read it again.

More along the lines of what you are looking for I think is Lewis's "The Abolition of Man". A chilling, excellent, prescient book, very short. I never hear anything about it, but to me it is a book that everyone must read.

For fiction try Josephine Tey's 'The Daughter of Time', it's a good lesson on the staying power of historical lies.

34 posted on 08/06/2006 7:18:58 PM PDT by jocon307 (The Silent Majority - silent no longer)

To: DesignerChick

As to non-fiction, these are some of the best conservative books, even though not always by conservatives. We have truth and reason on our side, which sometimes makes even liberals and socialists our advocates based on their experience and reading of the evidence.

The Conservative Mind, by Russel Kirk.

Burke's Politics, which is an edited compilation of excerpts from Edmund Burke, or Reflections on The Revolution in France, Burke's single masterwork.

Modern Times, by Paul Johnson.

A Patriot's History of the United States, by Larry Schweikart.

Wealth and Poverty, George Gilder.

The Russian Revolution, Richard Pipes.

The Idea of History, R. G. Collingwood, for how to think about history.

Rationalism in Politics, Michael Oakeshott.

The Constitution of Liberty, F. A. von Hayek, and his path-breaking The Road to Serfdom.

Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman.

Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell, an account of the Spanich Civil War.

The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper.

The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis.

Revolt of the Masses, Jose Ortega y Gasset.

Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Joseph A. Schumpeter

The Great Terror, Robert Conquest.

The Quest for Community, Robert Nisbet.

Witness, Whittaker Chambers.

The Everlasting Man, G. K. Chesterton.

God & Man at Yale, William F. Buckley Jr.

Ethnic America, by Thomas Sowell, and almost anything else by him.

The Machiavellians, by James Burnham, and the Suicide of the West.

Witness, by Whittaker Chambers.

David Pryce-Jones, Faoud Ajoumi, Bernard Lewis, Bat Y'or, and Robert Spencer as to Islam and the Arabs.

Disraeli, Robert Blake, for a model political biography of a great conservative.

Martin Gilbert and William Manchester on Churchill.

Roll, Jordan, Roll, Eugene D. Genovese -- a great account of how American slaves suffered and triumphed over slavery.

The Second World War, John Keegan.

Battle Cry of Freedom (one volume), by James M. McPherson, or The Civil War, by Shelby Foote, for a multi-volume account of the central tragedy in American History.

Madison's Notes on the Federal Convention and the Federalist Papers for the indispensable source documents of the American Founding.

35 posted on 08/06/2006 9:09:23 PM PDT by Rockingham

Great Resource. Thanks.

36 posted on 08/06/2006 11:32:20 PM PDT by FreeRadical (Just a Fool Waiting on the Wrong Block)

To: DesignerChick

Slouching Towards Gomorrah
by Robert H. Bork

37 posted on 08/07/2006 2:05:34 AM PDT by VRWCtaz (A challenge to Liberals: I will read any book you name - if you will do the same. (very few takers))

To: DesignerChick

John Randolph Of Roanoke - Russell Kirk

Union And Liberty - John C. Calhoun

Arator - John Taylor

38 posted on 08/07/2006 5:49:14 AM PDT by colonel mosby

To: DesignerChick

Atlas Shrugged is a lot better; I've read both.

39 posted on 08/07/2006 5:49:40 AM PDT by libstripper

"Maybe you could share with us one or two things that strike you as "inane polemics." "

I'd be delighted

Howabout Rearden's speech to Dagny after their first night together (I paraphrase): "I hate you for the love I feel for you and I hate myself for the love you feel towards me but I'll use you whenever I want and despise you for letting me." etc. etc.

Or howabout every facial expression is composed of compound contradictory emotions ie joyful/remorse or painful/mirth; caused no doubt by the turgid dialouge these characters are made to pronounce such that even they, fictional characters, could hardly mouth them w/o ecstatic pain.

40 posted on 08/07/2006 7:08:59 AM PDT by Pietro

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