conservative books


 

Recommended Books for Conservatives

Here's a list of books that I have read that I recommend for conservatives, along with some comments about them. Your patronage here will help support the Liberty Musings website and blog as we seek to promote the truth. Even if you don't plan to buy these books in particular, if you happen to click on the book and go to Amazon from that click, anything you buy from Amazon during the next 24 hours will be credited to our account. Here are the books and my comments:

 

Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto - Paperback by Mark R. Levin

This is a link to the paperback version.

After all these years of being out, this book is still in the top ten at Amazon for books on conservatism and liberalism. He traces conservative thought back to Edmund Burke, and then takes the facade off all of the permutations of liberalism, calling them all "statism," showing how they are all inherently oppressive, how they never work, and thus why their proponents are never satisfied with the results of their philosophy and always preach that if they just had a little more control over the individual they would finally produce the desired results.

Highly recommended as a gift for both the committed Liberal and the squishy Moderate. If anything will open their eyes, this will.

 

American Life: The Autobiography - Paperback - by Ronald Reagan

There are hardcover, kindle, and audio versions of this book also. This is a candid and dramatic look from within the heart of whom I feel was the greatest U.S. President of the 20th Century. It is fascinating reading and difficult to put down. It gave me tremendous respect for his intelligence and wisdom. The parts I particularly loved?

  • When he wakes up to the increasing influence of communism in his film industry.
  • When he discovers that Liberals didn't really want to fight the communists.
  • His discovery of the dampening influence of oppressive tax rates on the wealthy, and how that helped convert him to becoming conservative.
  • His walking out on Gorbachev in Reykjavik, but then his ability to later develop a friendship with him.
  • The resistance from his own advisors to his "tear down this wall" speech.
 

A. Lincoln: A Biography - Hardcover – by Ronald C. White Jr

What I loved about this particular Lincoln biography was its treatment of Lincoln's religious beliefs and how they shaped his leadership and sense of mission, and how they drove him to his knees for the major decisions of his presidency. The heartbreaks he suffered as a young man - the premature deaths of his mother, his sister, and his first true love, seem to have given him the tender heart that made him determined to eradicate slavery and preserve the great principles of liberty enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. This book has the power to transform you.

 

Steve Jobs - Hardcover by Walter Isaacson

Many will no doubt question my placing this book in a list of books about conservatism, because Steve Jobs was a liberal. Yes, he was, but he was a classical liberal who wanted the government out of his life, and his story illustrates a foundational principle of conservatism. What man can accomplish when allowed the freedom to explore, to experiment, and to develop, can be nearly limitless. Statism wants to control the individual. Statist philophy, carried to its ultimate conclusion, would have squashed Steve Jobs and people like him. This is a fascinating and brutally honest book that examines both the genius and the human failings of a most remarkable man who did indeed change the world.

 

The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic - Hardcover by Mark R. Levin

Mark Levin has written many New York Times #1 Bestsellers. This, I feel, is destined to be the most transformative. Debuting at #1 on the New York Times list in every nonfiction category, it offers a practical, achievable way for conservatives to actually restore the principles originally enshrined in our constitution that have been twisted out if it by statists over the past 100 years. Brilliant and forceful.

The most remarkable thing about what he proposes is that it is actually achievable. Expect it to strike terror in the hearts of members of the ruling class in both American political parties.

 

7 Tipping Points That Saved the World - Hardcover by Chris Stewart and Ted Stewart

The thesis of this book is that liberty is fragile and the times and peoples in the history of the world where liberty has flourished have been rare. The book chronicles 7 attempts during the history of the world where sparks of liberty were nearly crushed by regimes that sought to enslave all of humanity, and the courageous efforts of those who successfully fought them off. Interestingly, in the light of today's politics, two of those efforts at world domination that were almost successful were a result of Islamic people pursuing the Islamic doctrine that required the subjugation or elimination of all who would refuse to embrace their religion.

 

Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets - Hardcover by Peter Schweizer

This has the appearance of being a sensationalistic book, but it is actually a carefully researched and documented study of the corruption most of us sense is part of the Washington, DC culture. There are two key points that it brings out:
1) The Obama Administration governs with a police state mentality. Dissenters in the media and in corporate America are threatened and punished. Those who go along are rewarded.
2) Even Republicans are part of corrupt vote-buying schemes. Speaker John Boehner runs the House of Representatives not in the interests of the country, but as a business designed to enrich him and his allies.

Click here to listen to a 12-minute interview of the author by conservative radio host Mark Levin.

     

 

 


“The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.”—Edmund Burke