Updated: A Reading
Hon. Robert A. Hall
I’ve updated this list. I believe you can find and read about all these books on Amazon.com
Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One by Thomas Sowell
Economics may be called the “dismal science,” but a lack of understanding of basic economic principles by most voters and far too many politicians is the root of much of our current trouble. Politicians often get elected by giving voters things they want in the short term, which ruin the economy in the long term, and the voters fail to make the connection. If you don’t understand economics, you are not an informed voter.
No one explains economics more clearly than Dr. Sowell, whose economics books are in many languages and many classrooms. His research and examples are strong, and his writing both entertaining and easy to understand for the lay reader. His best-seller Basic Economics is even better, but it’s twice as long. If you want more, read that as well.
Sowell is well-represented on this list, because I find him both brilliant and excellent at conveying ideas. He was born to a dirt-poor black family in North Carolina, which didn’t have hot water or electricity, supported himself from age 17 on, and worked his way (before affirmative action) through Harvard, Columbia and to a PhD from the University of Chicago. He has taught at several major universities and has dozens of books in print. His autobiography, A Personal Odyssey is inspiring. His columns are achieved on his website: www.tsowell.com.
Race and Culture: A World View by Thomas Sowell
The challenges of race and culture that confront us are not unique to America
His excellent collection of essays, Black Rednecks and White Liberals is also a wonderful book, touching on many of these topics. The “Real History of Slavery” essay is alone worth the price of this book.
Race & Economics by Walter E. Williams, PhD
Williams is an economist at George Mason University
A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles by Thomas Sowell
I might as well get my last recommendation for Sowell out of the way. This book is different from many of his others in that he is not putting forth his ideas, viewpoint and opinions here, but presenting a balanced discussion of the foundations of thought for modern liberalism and modern conservatism. It requires a bit more intellectual focus than the books above, but will not be hated by folks of either viewpoint. If you want to understand why those stupid liberals/conservatives think like they do, this is where to find out.
Steyn is a very entertaining and funny writer, though this is a most serious subject. It deals with demographics and the dangerous fact that for most of the western world, including Japan and Canada Europe and the west are likely to collapse within 30 years. It also means the western social welfare state cannot be sustained, and that Europe will increasingly be Islamicized and in fiscal turmoil. America
After America
A follow up to America Alone. Similar to my book, The Coming Collapse of the American Republic, but longer, with more details, and written with Steyn’s quirky humor.
This is the pro-Islam view by an Iranian religious scholar. In my view, several of the important questions were glossed over, and being Iranian, he leans a tad toward the Shia side of the Sunni-Shia struggle in Islam, but it’s a good, non-inflammatory understanding of how moderate Muslims view their religion. Since the challenge of militant political Islam isn’t going away, you had better understand this religion. (BTW, Islam means “submission” not “peace” as is often claimed.)
This is the other side, as Spencer is an out-spoken critic of political Islam and the belief that it is basically a “religion of peace.” If you read this and No god but God, you’ll be pretty well grounded in the arguments. Spencer also wrote The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion and other books that are well researched, which would get his head cut off in any of a number of countries.
The Sword of the Prophet by Serge Trifkovic and A Concise History of the Crusades by Thomas F. Madden are also worth reading. It also helps if you know that Islam attacked Europe well before the much-maligned Crusades. See Tours , Battle
Sowing the Wind: The Seeds of Conflict in the Middle East by John Keay
A broad look at an area we will be engaged with for a long time. This is an excellent one-volume history of the Middle East, from 1890 through the Suez Middle East 1914 – 1922 by David Fromkin is also worth reading, but narrower.
Mohammad & Charlemagne Revisited: The History of a Controversy by Emmet Scott.
This controversial update of Henri Pirenne’s theory that it was the rise of Islam that destroyed classical civilization in Europe is in my view the most important and on the mark. Scott lays out a solid case that it was the closure of Mediterranean trade route by Muslim raiders, and the destruction of the lowland, coastal agricultural system that supported advanced economies, as the peoples in the south of Europe had to retreat to defended hill top towns to escapes the attentions of Islamic slave raiders that provided the death knell for classical civilization. Some telling quotes from the book, which bring to mind our present world: “Aside from the aristocrats themselves, there were armies of bureaucrats and courtiers surrounding the (Roman) Emperor, huge numbers of soldiers, and a vast number of unemployed plebeians, who had to be supported by a social security system, which the Roman’s named the “dole.” … With the decline of the city as a political power, the great majority of this population would naturally have disappeared. (PP. 80-81). (Be carefully what you wish for, OWS!) “Under the protective shield of Rome, the farmers, artisans, and intellectuals…had grown to despise the calling of the soldier, and to see the defense of the country as someone else’s business. … The civilian populations of Anatolia, of Syria , of Egypt , and of North Africa were vast, but they were completely unused to war. After the defeats of the Imperial forces (by the Muslims), there existed no tradition of military training or activity which could have facilitated independent local action against the invaders.” (P. 172. “Islam is virtually unique among world religions in that its primary scriptures advocate the use of military force and its early expansion—indeed its expansion during the first six or seven centuries of its existence—invariably involved military conquest and the use of force.” (P.185) “…there was continual and almost uninterrupted war between Muslims and (European) Chris tians since the first attack on Sicily in 652 and Constantinople in 674. In the great majority of these wars, the Muslims were the aggressors. … it is estimated that between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries alone (Muslim pirates) captured and enslaved in excess of a million Europeans.” (P. 187) This book will broaden your understanding of the ancient world, the foundations of our civilization, and the on-going clash with Islam. I rate it a “must read.”
Infidel by Ayann Hirsa Ali.
What is it like to be a woman under Islam? Ali’s autobiography describes her rise from a nomadic Muslim family in Somalia, her and her sister’s genital mutilation at ages 5 & 4, her escape to Holland from a forced marriage, her election as a member of the Dutch parliament, her campaign against the domestic violence and circumcision of little girls on kitchen tables that is widespread among Muslim immigrants in Holland, the murder of Theo van Gogh (grand nephew of the painter) after they made a film together criticizing Muslim violence against women, and her move to the United States after having to go into hiding to save her life. If there was ever a feminist book by a feminist who sought change at the risk of her life, this is it.
Liberty and Civilization: The Western Heritage edited by the philosopher Roger Scruton.
The book is described as examining, “the intellectual and spiritual traditions of our belief in individual liberty, from its Judeo Chris tian origins on through Enlightenment philosophy.” I found several of the essays, such as one on the little-known aspects of the history of the women’s rights movement, worth the price of the book. (Not that I liked every essay in it.) Valuable to understanding the foundations of our Republic.
Levin has a reputation as a bomb thrower on his radio program. I don’t listen to talk radio, so I couldn’t say. But this short, concise book is a clear and ringing defense of freedom and individualism. I highly recommend it.
Hogan is a “hard science” science fiction writer, who got interested in controversies in science and researched them for this book. It’s out of print, so a bit hard to get. I’m not a scientist, and I suspect that a many, perhaps most of the alternative theories he explores are wrong. But I was fascinated by the politics, the manipulation, the vicious attacks, and the strenuous efforts to prevent other views from being heard that permeate science, where things apparently get as nasty as any political campaign. You won’t think of science and the lofty proclamations of scientists the same way after you have read this book.
The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek
We are back to economics and philosophy with this classic. I’ll let you skip it if you wish, as it is a hard read, needing a lot of focus, not at all like Sowell. Hayek was writing in Britain in the 1940s, having been driven from his native Austria
A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq
An excellent history of the type of wars we are likely to be involved in for a long time. A Harvard and Cambridge-trained historian, Dr. Moyar reviews what worked and what didn’t, who were good leaders and who failed the test of insurgency warfare. This will help you judge how we are doing in places like Afghanistan
A Patriot' s History of the United States : From Columbus ' s Great Discovery to the War on Terror by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen. At 830 pages, this book requires a time investment, but is well worth it, if you haven’t reviewed US History since college. Or never. It’s a good book to buy for you high school and college students—if you can get them to read it! I have a Masters in History and read history for pleasure, so I picked up many small details I consider to be errors in fact, which hopefully will be corrected in future editions. But they didn’t impact the broad conclusions. The authors are academic historians, and do not gloss over the bad patches, such as slavery and the treatment of the indigenous population (what we used to call “Indians” before PC took hold.) On the other hand, the book was free of the Marxist cant and genuflections to leftist chimeras so prevalent on campus today. They do an excellent job of achieving balance, for example, criticizing FDR for depression-extending economic policies while praising his wartime leadership and diplomacy. Certainly the last chapter on the Bush presidency and the War on Terror will be disputed by the left, but it brings balance to the narrative they push in a sycophantic media. The book is well written and clear, not difficult to understand, which is a benefit. You can read the mixed reviews on Amazon for more details—you’ll be able to discern the world views of the writers!
The United States
Really. If you haven’t read it, or not lately, do so. Let me know if you find the phrase “Separation of Church and State.” Also, note that promoting the general welfare is not a power granted to the government. It is the reason the enumerated powers, and no others, were granted to the federal government. I recently picked up, The American Constitution, For and Against: The Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers and it’s in the reading mountain. (Oh, BTW, the phrase “Life, Liberty
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. By Jonathan Haidt
Haidt is a self-described left-wing academic and atheist, though of Jewish heritage. He is a Kerry and Obama supporter, a bias he is very open about and references throughout this work. But he is also an intellectually honest man and—so rare on today’s campuses—open to diversity of thought, the only kind of diversity that really matters. A “Moral Psychologist,” Haidt makes a very solid academic research effort to understand the moral foundations of both conservative and liberal political thought, as well as why religion is important in human societies. The book held my interest throughout, and will be of great value to thinkers on both the right and the left of our political divide, who will gain understanding of why they hold the views they do, and why others hold different views. Shouters and haters, not so much. Read through the reviews on Amazon. This book is well worth your time.
Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner
Did you or someone in your family lose your job in the 2008 economic collapse? Was your retirement gutted? Is your mortgage underwater or your house foreclosed? This book by NYT reporters names the names. If you want to blame Jim Johnson, Frank Raines and Fannie Mae, here’s the evidence in spades. If you want to blame subprime mortgage lenders like Angelo Mozilo and Countrywide, who played fast and loose with the economy while giving sweetheart loans to politicians, here’s the evidence, in spades. If you want to blame Wall Street corruption and greed, here’s the evidence, in spades. If you want to blame politicians of both parties who aided the pirates, here’s the evidence. If you want to blame weak and captive regulators, here’s the evidence. If you want to blame the Fed, here’s the evidence. If you want to blame local mortgage brokers and dishonest buyers colluding to create millions of toxic liar-loan mortgages that were sold to mostly-unsuspecting investors, here’s the evidence. If you want to blame Standard and Poor, Moody’s and Fitch for giving solid investment ratings to toxic bundled sub-prime mortgage securities to keep their fees flowing, here’s the evidence.
Coming Apart: The State of White America
Excerpt: Despite the subtitle, this is a book about class, not race. The author is looking at a lot of data that suggested the upper class that runs the country, which he calls the Narrow Elite and the Broad Elite, is increasingly wealthy, increasingly takes in both liberals and conservatives with high IQs and is increasingly isolated from the experience of the rest of America. He focuses on whites because that Narrow Elite is overwhelmingly white. He also focuses on the white lower class, so the comparison will not be between a white upper class and a minority lower class. He looks at a lot of data suggesting the white lower class is being destroyed by several trends: decreasing industriousness and ability to hold jobs among males, decreasing participation in civic organizations or churches, decreasing marriage rates, decreasing rates of trust and neighborliness, and sharply escalating non-marital birth rates, all trends that suggest the destruction of both happiness for these folks and what he calls the "American Project." Interestingly, after detailing the rolling disaster that is over-taking the white lower class, he presents data that suggest the minority lower class is not much different, contrary to what many might expect. This reinforces my long-held belief that race doesn't matter, culture matters a great deal. I do not think this is a "liberal" or a "Conservative" book. He says he is neither, but is a libertarian, rare among social scientists. He carefully points out in what I think is a balanced way how liberals or conservatives might draw differing interpretations from the data than he does. Most frightening for me is that the short book I published, The Coming Collapse of the American Republic, does not include America
Dismantling America
Though I have read many of these essays and columns before, you will find more common sense about what is wrong with our politics and culture in this book than in all of Washington , DC
The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle
A wonderfully-written book that will make you look at a lot of issues in a new light. It is about the intersection of geography with history, geopolitics, national interests and power. Though I have a master’s degree in history and am well read in the field, I also learned a great deal about non-European history. Particularly China , India and the Middle East , though of course in one book it could only take a broad brush approach to these things. Unfortunately, Kaplan gave me several new worries about the future, and I was already pretty pessimistic. This is a high level review of geo-strategy, and should be read by policy makers at all levels. It requires some focus; certainly not light entertainment. The most interesting section was the last. Kaplan argues that Mexico , with a long border with the US , is far more important to us than Iraq , Afghanistan and the Middle East . Given that Mexico and Central America have a rapidly developing population—now at 50% of the United States —and a native US birthrate below the replacement level, he argues that we cannot afford to have Mexico
Gross National Happiness: Why Happiness Matters for America
Brooks is an economist and academic, and this book is data driven by population surveys, both in the US
Coolidge by Amity Shlaes
This long, but well-written book has a wealth of historical detail from the first thirty years of the last century, for the US in general and Massachusetts
New Ideas From Dead Economists by Todd Buchholz
Buchholz won the Allyn Young Teaching Prize at Harvard and holds advanced degrees in economics and law from Cambridge
Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson
The War of the World by Niall Ferguson
White Girl Bleed a Lot: The Return of Race Riots to America
Eric Holder, America ’s first black attorney general, famously said the United States America Lot is pretty much a collection of links to news stories and YouTube videos of a national epidemic of black on white, racially-motivated violence. (If you can read this on Kindle, the links will be live. The print edition directs you to a website when you can view his original sources.) You can argue if the numbers involved always justify Flaherty’s use of “Race Riot. But one thing is clear, there have been dozens and dozens of such incidents, any one of which, had it been a white mob beating a black person, would have gotten the full “Trayvon Martin-George Zimmermen-America is racist” treatment. This is why almost every American knows Martin’s and Zimmerman’s names, but few know the name of Chris topher Cervini, an unarmed white teen shot dead by a black man, Roderick Scott in NY (with no “stand your ground” law) who walked on self-defense. I have long argued that race doesn’t matter, but culture matters a lot. But the inner city black culture is certifiably violent and out of control. The brilliant black economist, Dr. Thomas Sowell, argues in his book, Black Rednecks and White Liberals that the violent black inner city culture was imported by migrating blacks from lower class white culture in the South, and is not inherently black. I do not fear middle class black folks who are part of the same culture I am. The many incidents Flaherty documents are mostly from lower class inner-city blacks of that culture. I would not go to those Chicago Chicago
Understanding the Vietnam War
A while back, a friend, too young for that conflict, asked me for a reading list on Vietnam
Whitewash, Blackwash Myths of the Viet Nam
Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 by Mark Moyar (A second volumn is reportedly in the works.)
A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America 's Last Years in Vietnam
Strength & Honor by Terry L. Garlock
Noble Warrior: The Life and Times of Maj. Gen. James E. Livingston, USMC. Autobiography
Never Without Heroes by Lawrence
Fields of Fire by James Webb (Excellent Novel)
*****
Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate immediately after graduating from the University of Massachusetts
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