Conservatism Books - Page 6

The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America's Future

Craig Unger

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Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The presidency of George W. Bush has led to the worst foreign policy decision in the history of the United States -- the bloody, unwinnable war in Iraq. How did this happen? Bush's fateful decision was rooted in events that began decades ago, and until now this story has never been fully told.



From Craig Unger, the author of the bestseller House of Bush, House of Saud, comes a comprehensive, deeply sourced, and chilling account of the secret relationship between neoconservative policy makers and the Christian Right, and how they assaulted the most vital safeguards of America's constitutional democracy while pushing the country into the catastrophic quagmire in the Middle East that is getting worse day by day.



Among the powerful revelations in this book:



Why George W. Bush ignored the sage advice of his father, George H.W. Bush, and took America into war.


How Bush was convinced he was doing God's will.


How Vice President Dick Cheney manipulated George W. Bush, disabled his enemies within the administration, and relentlessly pressed for an attack on Iraq.
Which veteran government official, with the assent of the president's father, protested passionately that the Bush administration was making a catastrophic mistake -- and was ignored.


How information from forged documents that had already been discredited fourteen times by various intelligence agencies found its way into President Bush's State of the Union address in which he made the case for war with Iraq.


How Cheney and the neocons assembled a shadow national security apparatus and created a disinformation pipeline to mislead America and start the war.


A seasoned, award-winning investigative reporter connected to many back-channel political and intelligence sources, Craig Unger knows how to get the big story -- and this one is his most explosive yet. Through scores of interviews with figures in the Christian Right, the neoconservative movement, the Bush administration, and sources close to the Bush family, as well as intelligence agents in the CIA, the Pentagon, and Israel, Unger shows how the Bush administration's certainty that it could bend history to its will has carried America into the disastrous war in Iraq, dooming Bush's presidency to failure and costing America thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. Far from ensuring our security, the Iraq War will be seen as a great strategic pivot point in history that could ignite wider war in the Middle East, particularly in Iran.




Provocative, timely, and disturbing, The Fall of the House of Bush stands as the most comprehensive and dramatic account of how and why George W. Bush took America to war in Iraq.

Upstream: The Ascendance of American Conservatism

Alfred S. Regnery

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Alfred S. Regnery, the publisher of The American Spectator, has been a part of the American conservative movement since childhood, when his father founded The Henry Regnery Company, which subsequently became Regnery Publishing -- the preeminent conservative publishing house that, among other notable achievements, published William F. Buckley's first book, God and Man at Yale. Including many uniquely personal anecdotes and stories, Regnery himself now boldly chronicles the development of the conservative movement from 1945 to the present.

The outpouring of grief at the funeral of Ronald Reagan in 2004 -- and the acknowledgment that Reagan has come to be considered one of the greatest presidents of the twentieth century -- is Regnery's opening for a fascinating insider story. Beginning at the start of the twentieth century, he shows how in the years prior to and just post World War II, expanding government power at home and the expanding Communist empire abroad inspired conservatives to band together to fight these threats. The founding of the National Review, the drive to nominate Barry Goldwater first as vice-president and later as president, the apparent defeat of the conservative movement at the hands of Lyndon Johnson, and the triumphant rise of Ronald Reagan from the ashes are all chronicled in vivid prose that shows a uniquely intimate knowledge of the key figures. Regnery shares his views on the opposition that formed in response to Earl Warren's Supreme Court rulings, the role of faith (both Roman Catholic and Evangelical) in the renewed vigor of conservatism, and the contributing role of American businessmen who attempted to oppose big government.

Upstream ultimately gives perspective to how the most vibrant political and cultural force of our time has influenced American culture, politics, economics, foreign policy, and all institutions and sectors of American life.

More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well (Hoover Institution Press Publication ; No. 453)

Walter E. Williams

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Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this new collection of thoughtful, hard-hitting essays, Walter E. Williams once again takes on the left wing's most sacred cows with provocative insights, brutal candor, and an uncompromising reverence for personal liberty and the principles laid out in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. He challenges the assumptions of contemporary liberalism with ruthless honesty, presenting an impressive array of powerful ideas and substantive information to frame his perspectives on the issues facing America in such critical areas as race, sex, government, law, education, the environment, and international relations. Williams's often controversial views include commentary on

• Women in the Military. "At Parris Island, it was discovered that 45 percent of female Marines were unable to throw a hand grenade far enough to avoid blowing themselves up. If I were in a foxhole with a woman about to toss a hand grenade, I'd consider her the enemy."
• Racial and Gender Quotas. "The only reason the elite haven't mandated quotas for women, Japanese, and other underrepresented groups in the NBA and the NFL is because the folly and costs of their cosmic justice vision would be exposed."
• Affirmative Action. "Too many blacks receive twelve years of fraudulent primary and secondary education that cannot be overcome by four years of college. Unfortunately, liberals and civil rights organizations add to that disaster by giving unquestioned support to a corrupt education establishment that produces the fraud."
• The Americans with Disabilities Act. "In some quarters, the ADA is taken to stand for 'Attorney's Dream Answered.' And who pays? You and I, through higher prices or less convenience."
• The Minimum Wage. "Low wages are more a result of people being underproductive than being underpaid. They simply do not have the skills to produce and do things their fellow man highly values. The minimum wage law is evil legislation and deserving of repeal altogether."

Using the fundamentals of economics—and basic common sense—to prove his points, Williams offers wise, witty, and stimulating insights on these and other controversial subjects, including corporate welfare, gun control, environmental regulations, free trade, abortion, the public school system, tobacco industry regulation, and more.

An American Family: The Buckleys

Reid Buckley

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

An extraordinary and sweeping memoir of one of the most revered families in America -- the Buckleys

The Buckley name is synonymous with a unique brand of conservatism -- marked by merciless reasoning, wit, good humor, and strong will. Self-made oil tycoon William F. Buckley, Sr., of Texas, and his Southern belle wife, Aloise Steiner Buckley, of New Orleans, raised a family of ten whose ideals would go on to shape the traditionalist revival in American culture.

But their family history is anything but conventional. Begun in Mexico (until their father was expelled) and set against a diverse inter-national background (the children's first languages were Spanish and French) with colorful guest stars (such as Pancho Villa, and Norman Mailer), theirs was a life built on self-reliance, hard work, belief in God, and respect for all. It is no wonder the family produced nationally recognizable figures such as columnist and commentator William, Jr., New York Times bestselling satirist Christopher, and New York senator James.

With charm and candor, youngest son Reid, himself the founder of the Buckley School of Public Speaking in South Carolina, tells the enormously engaging and entertaining -- sometimes outrageous -- story of a family that became the mainstay of right-wing belief in our politics and culture. An American Family is an epic memoir that at once will appeal to conservatives, liberals, and moderates alike.

A Personal Odyssey

Thomas Sowell

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Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

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This is the gritty story of one man's lifelong education in the school of hard knocks, as his journey took him from Harlem to the Marines, the Ivy League, and a career as a controversial writer, teacher, and economist in government and private industry. It is also the story of the dramatically changing times in which this personal odyssey took place.

The vignettes of the people and places that made an impression on Thomas Sowell at various stages of his life range from the poor and the powerless to the mighty and the wealthy, from a home for homeless boys to the White House, as well as ranging across the United States and around the world. It also includes Sowell's startling discovery of his own origins during his teenage years.

If the child is father to the man, this memoir shows the characteristics that have become familiar in the public figure known as Thomas Sowell already present in an obscure little boy born in poverty in the Jim Crow South during the Great Depression and growing up in Harlem. His marching to his own drummer, his disregard of what others say or think, even his battles with editors who attempt to change what he has written, are all there in childhood.

More than a story of the life of Sowell himself, this is also a story of the people who gave him their help, their support, and their loyalty, as well as those who demonized him and knifed him in the back. It is a story not just of one life, but of life in general, with all its exhilaration and pain.

They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons

Jacob Heilbrunn

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The neocons have become at once the most feared and reviled intellectual movement in American history. Critics on left and right describe them as a tight-knit cabal that ensnared the Bush administration in an unwinnable foreign war.

Who are the neoconservatives? How did an obscure band of policy intellectuals, left for dead in the 1990s, suddenly rise to influence the Bush administration and revolutionize American foreign policy?

Jacob Heilbrunn wittily and pungently depicts the government officials, pundits, and think-tank denizens who make up this controversial movement, bringing them to life against a background rich in historical detail and political insight. Setting the movement in the larger context of the decades-long battle between liberals and conservatives, first over communism, now over the war on terrorism, he shows that they have always been intellectual mavericks, with a fiery prophetic temperament (and a rhetoric to match) that sets them apart from both liberals and traditional conservatives.

Neoconservatism grew out of a split in the 1930s between Stalinists and followers of Trotsky. These obscure ideological battles between warring Marxist factions were transported to the larger canvas of the Cold War, as over time the neocons moved steadily to the right, abandoning the Democratic party after 1972 when it shunned intervention abroad, and completing their journey in 1980 when they embraced Ronald Reagan and the Republican party. There they supplied the ideological glue that held the Reagan coalition together, combining the agenda of “family values” with a crusading foreign policy.

Out of favor with the first President Bush, and reduced to gadflies in the Clinton years, they suddenly found themselves in George W. Bush’s administration in a position of unprecendented influence. For the first time in their long history, they had their hands on the levers of power. Prompted by 9/11, they used that power to advance what they believed to be America’s strategic interest in spreading democracy throughout the Arab world.

Their critics charge that the neo-conservatives were doing the bidding of the Israeli government -- a charge that the neoconservatives rightfully reject. But Heilbrunn shows that the story of the neocons is inseparable from the great historical drama of Jewish assimilation. Decisively shaped by the immigrant exerience and the trauma of the Holocaust, they rose from the margins of political life to become an insurgent counter-establishment that challenged the old WASP foreign policy elite.

Far from being chastened by the Iraq debacle, the neocons continue to guide foreign policy. They are advisors to each of the major GOP presidential candidates. Repeatedly declared dead in the past, like Old Testament prophets they thrive on adversity. This book shows where they came from -- and why they remain a potent and permanent force in American politics.

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900

Andrew Roberts

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Total reviews: 43 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A refreshing change... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

'A History of The English Speaking Peoples' by Andrew Roberts

Andrew Roberts has penned a refreshing, enjoyable and erudite history of English-speaking nations in 'A History of The English Speaking Peoples'. Refreshing, I say, due to the fact that he is unapologetic (for the most part) for and sympathetic to these nations capitalistic economies, approaches to foreign policy and support for spreading democracy. Refreshing, because so much of the history that has been written over the last many decades have pilloried the English-speaking peoples over these aforementioned subjects.

A clear narrative this is not: the book may seem disjointed, at least at the start, however you'll soon get the feel for Roberts' voice and settle in well. He jumps from topic to topic which may take adjusting though his prose is superb and you'll find a good deal of humor as you move along. I've seen this book described as a right wing polemic, and I suppose I can understand why, though I rarely see the knives come out for Chomsky's or Zinn's new releases. For those right of center, you'll find this read extremely enjoyable; for others who reside comfortably in the center this will serve, if nothing else, as a fine alternative for the left wing polemics; those left of center will likely seethe.

Editorial Review:

A magisterial history inspired by Winston Churchill's famous opus, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 is an engrossing account of the twentieth century, with a unique perspective on our turbulent times. In 1900, where Churchill ended the fourth volume of his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, the United States had not yet emerged onto the world scene as a great power. Yet the coming century was to belong to the English-speaking peoples, who successively and successfully fought the Kaiser's Germany, Axis aggression and Soviet Communism, and who are now struggling against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. Andrew Roberts's History proves especially invaluable as the United States today looks to other parts of the English-speaking world as its best, closest and most dependable allies.

Pure Goldwater

John W. Dean, Barry M. Goldwater

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

TEN star Great book 5 out of 5 stars.
11 of 14 people found this review helpful.

Let me state from the get go that I am a Senator Goldwater and President Reagan style Republican.

What I think this books value is in 2008 is how it sheds alot of light on Senator Hillary Clinton who was a Goldwater girl as well as Senator John McCain who in his pre 2008 years was more Goldwater minded than most people know. But he has gone off course so badly and isnt the same open honest straight talking express man he once was.

Also of interest to me was how Libertarian minded Senator Goldwater was and not the conservative Republican of recent years which is right wing Christian close minded mode. I say this as a Christian who is Goldwater mode.

This is a book that anyone interested in sanity, smaller government, and Constitutional law should read. Sadly so many people probably see Goldwater as some right wing zealot. Thats President G. W. Bush, not Senator Goldwater.

Editorial Review:

Barry Goldwater is a defining figure in American public life, a firebrand politician associated with an optimistic brand of conservatism. In an era in which American conservatism has lost his way, his legacy is more important than ever. For over 50 years, in those moments when he was away from the political fray, Senator Goldwater kept a private journal, recording his reflections on a rich political and personal life. Here bestselling author John Dean combines analysis with Goldwater's own words. 

With unprecedented access to his correspondence, interviews, and behind-the-scenes conversations, Dean sheds new light on this political figure. From the late Senator's honest thoughts on Richard Nixon to his growing discomfort with the rise of the extreme right, Pure Goldwater offers a revelatory look at an American icon--and also reminds us of a more hopeful alternative to the dispiriting political landscape of today.

Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right

E. J., Jr. Dionne

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The religious and political winds are changing. Tens of millions of religious Americans are reclaiming faith from those who would abuse it for narrow, partisan, and ideological purposes. And more and more secular Americans are discovering common ground with believers on the great issues of social justice, peace, and the environment. In Souled Out, award-winning journalist and commentator E. J. Dionne explains why the era of the Religious Right--and the crude exploitation of faith for political advantage--is over.

Based on years of research and writing, Souled Out shows that the end of the Religious Right doesn't signal the decline of evangelical Christianity but rather its disentanglement from a political machine that sold it out to a narrow electoral agenda of such causes as opposition to gay marriage and abortion. With insightful portraits of leading contemporary religious figures from Rick Warren and Richard Cizik to John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Dionne shows that our great religions have always preached a broad message of hope for more just human arrangements and refused to be mere props for the powers that be. Dionne also argues that the new atheist writers should be seen as a gift to believers, a demand that they live up to their proclaimed values and embrace scientific and philosophical inquiry in a spirit of "intellectual solidarity."

Written in the tradition of Reinhold and H. Richard Niebuhr, Souled Out will help change how we think and talk about religion and politics in the post-Bush era.

Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy

Peter Schweizer

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Total reviews: 331 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Prominent liberals support a whole litany of policies and principles: progressive taxes, affirmative action, greater regulation of corporations, raising the inheritance tax, strict environmental regulations, children’s rights, consumer rights, and more. But do they actually live by these beliefs? Peter Schweizer decided to investigate the private lives of politicians like the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, the Kennedys, and Ralph Nader; commentators Michael Moore, Al Franken, Noam Chomsky, and Cornel West; entertainers or philanthropists Barbra Streisand and George Soros. Using publicly-available real estate records, IRS returns, court depositions, and their own published statements, he sought to examine whether they lived by the principles they so forcefully advocate.

What he found was a long list of contradictions. Many of these proponents of organized labor had developed various methods to sidestep paying union wages or avoid employing unions altogether. They were also adept at avoiding taxes; invested heavily in corporations they had denounced; took advantage of foreign tax credits to use non-American labor overseas; espoused environmental causes while opposing those that might affect their own property rights; hid their investments in trusts to avoid paying estate tax; denounced oil companies but quietly owned them.

Schweizer’s conclusion is simple: liberalism in the end forces its adherents to become hypocrites. They adopt one pose in public, but when it comes to what matters most in their own lives–their property, their privacy, and their children--they jettison their liberal principles and adopt conservative ones. If these ideas don’t work for the very individuals who promote them, Schweizer asks, how can they work for the country?