One surprising book on the list:
SAUL ALINKSY’s RULES FOR RADICALS
REASON:
The ultimate guide to community organizing by President Barack Obama’s one-time Chicago mentor Saul Alinsky. Because know thine enemy.
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I hasted to add, conservative lawyer, author and talk show host, Mark Levin actually READ THIS BOOK for precisely the reason presented in this article.
I recommend “Unintended Consequences” by John Ross and “Enemies Foreign and Domestic” by FreeRepublic’s own Matthew Bracken. They are pivotal pieces of fiction for understanding how this nation truly is and will continue to be on the edge.
I read it for my first political science class. The instructor gave us a list of 10 books to choose from in order to write our paper. I chose Goldwater's book and wrote what my friends told me was a pretty good paper. I was expecting at least a B.
Well, I got my paper back and it had a C- on it. I promptly went up and asked him why he gave my paper a C- and he said: "I don't like Barry Goldwater."
I said, "You are the one who put that book on your list. My paper deserves at least a B." (That same week I had written a paper on Henry IV that garnered me a 97.)
So, he changed my grade to a B-.
He ended up giving me an undeserved C for a final grade.
Yeah, he was a democrat.
“Atlas Shrugged”
“The Fountainhead”
“Witness”
“Blacklisted by History”
“The Forgotten 500”
“A World Undone”
The Naked Socialist by Paul B. Skousen
This list pretty much NAILS it..THERE are plenty of others....i’d throw in Rush’s last book and some of Hugh Hewitt and MiKE Medved and Dennis Praeger’s stuff for good doses of common sense....
At the beginning of Paul Johnson’s Modern Times he laments the two biggest failed ideas of the 20th Century, moral relativism (Weaver’s nominalism) and the lack of personal responsibility (society, not me, is responsible for my circumstance).
It is very difficult to see how our culture or even the world recovers from these bad ideas. How do you convince the post-modern mind that there are universal truths?
In my opinion, only world catastrophe, like depression or war of unprecedented scale can reorient these thought processes. They must be completely destroyed, eradicated and humiliated. There are too many people invested in these thoughts for their destruction/discredit to occur in the normal process of idea exchange.
Hence why Christianity, especially in Europe, is nearly extinct.
schu
Robert Bork’s Slouching Towards Gomorrah
and
The Great One’s Liberty and Tyranny
I think you ought to include the Bible, or at least the New Testament.
I would include either Chesterton’s “The Ever-Lasting Man” or “What’s Wrong with the World”.
Bump & ping
One book I’ve seen on conservative recommended book lists is Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia.” While it’s a good read, I don’t know why people think it’s such a great book for conservatives. Supposedly because it’s when Orwell rejected communism, but his love for socialism never abated.
I would add Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.
What happened to Eric Hoffer’s “The True Believer”?
That was the biggie when I was a lad!
Of course, “Fire For Dummies” was big then too...
For both children and adults: Johnny Tremain (appologies for no italics!) by Esther Forbes.
I can’t believe that none of Mark Levin’s book are on the list and that Ann Coulters made it on! His 3 books, Men in Black (about the Supreme Court), Liberty & Tyranny, and Ameritopia. All outstanding books and IMO should be required reading in every college.
Another great book is Ayn Rands Capitalism the unknown idea. In the book she compares George Romney to Karl Marx and some excerpt from Alan Greenspan when he didn’t loose his mind.
http://constitutioncoalition.blogspot.com/
Two other bedrock thinkers are glaringly absent: John Locke and Adam Smith.
We have a lot of work to do in getting these ideas into some chronological and theoretic order for popular dessimination, but its got to be done.
This was the first comment after the article...I've forgotten how great this book is..
Great book...definitely a must read...
Actually... A pretty good starter list.
1. The Road to Serfdom. Hayek was in Austria. He was in London at the LSE at the same time as Keynes and he was at University of Chicago. He was an excellent thinker and writer who was far ahead of his time. Hayek's logic is impeccable and he influenced many including Milton Freidman and Ronald Reagan.
2. 1984. Orwell is key to understanding many of the deceptions of the left. Orwell created so many concepts like “thought crime”, “big brother”, “newspeak” and so many others. Orwell's essays are also excellent.
3. Witness. This was the book that converted a young liberal actor to a principled conservative and later a great president. Reagan often spoke of how reading Witness moved him.
4. Blacklisted by History. One of the greatest lies of the left concerns Senator Joe McCarthy and “McCarthyism”. You sometimes even see conservatives falsely use the term “McCarthyism” to describe smear tactics. M. Stanton Edwards does an invaluable job of telling the truth and setting the record straight in this excellent biography.
5. Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution. I would recommend all of Antony Sutton's works. He meticulously researched the connections between the totalitarians and Communists and their supporters in the west.
6. The Conservative Mind. Russell Kirk gives an interesting overview.
7. The 50 Thousand Year Leap and The Naked Communist. Mark Skousen was very insightful. His work still holds up today.
8. Everything by William F. Buckley. Buckley was a true intellectual. God and Man at Yale was written in the 1950’s. Buckley wrote great books throughout his life. Buckley's brother in law Brent Bozell wrote Conscience of a Conservative for Barry Goldwater.
9. The Black Book of Communism. A must read. It is full of necessary information.
10. Coming Apart. Charles Murray provides a cogent analysis of the breakdown of American society. Like his earlier book, Losing Ground, Murray tells the truth that the MSM and the intellectuals refuse to talk about.
There are many other great books for conservatives. This is just a short list. I may have missed some.