Books to Read for a Conservative Perspective
At its all-time, conservatism is about learning the lessons of the past and applying them to today. Conservatives cannot wait for one second to get an accurate representation of this by from the corporate press, let lonely an entertainment industry where matters have to be simplified and edited simply as a function of the medium.
While there are many lists of books that validate conservatism and celebrate its accomplishments, this list is something else entirely. Here are 10 books that undercut the misinformation put along past the civilisation at large and that every conservative should read to fill up in gaps in contemporary bourgeois discourse.
1. 'Economics in One Lesson,' by Henry Hazlitt (1946)
Borrowing the broken-window fallacy expounded past Frédéric Bastiat, Hazlitt discusses bad economic science, which focuses on seen, short-term benefits, confronting good economics, which contrasts those benefits against unseen broader costs. Crystal-clear in its exposition, this short piece of work will permit every conservative to examine political proposals in an entirely new light.
2. 'The Black Book of Communism,' past Stéphane Courtois, et al. (1999)
Conservatives oftentimes like to dismiss socialism equally identical to communism, but this is far likewise uncomplicated an analysis. The most damning anti-communist volume was written by several academics, including some socialists. Nation by nation, the authors discuss the levels of depravity visited upon populations by their own governments, from genocides to concentration camps to torture and everything in between. Conservatives are fully enlightened that evil walks the earth: Here are the receipts, paid in the blood of literally tens of millions of innocents.
3. 'Hollywood Party: How Communism Seduced the American Film Industry in the 1930s and 1940s,' by Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley (1998)
To this day, children are taught in government schools that those blacklisted by Hollywood were punished for only having a different betoken of view. In fact, they were members of a surreptitious organization, taking directly orders from a foreign enemy that killed millions of its own citizens and was dedicated to the tearing overthrow of the American government. To understand what America realized in the 1950s, ane must learn of all the machinations that occurred previously — scheming that effectively turned Hollywood into a foreign propaganda machine on American soil.
4. 'Reagan and Thatcher: The Difficult Relationship,' by Richard Aldous (2012)
In this masterpiece of history as nowhere else, the two giants of 1980s conservatism come to life. Rather than focusing on their much-publicized — and sometimes inaccurate — partnership, Aldous discusses the frequent drama behind the scenes when British and American interests did not align.
The two kindred spirits establish themselves in opposing positions far more frequently than they always let on. It all builds upward to winning the Common cold War, freeing half the world without having to fire a shot, and it highlights the frequent lack of acknowledgment for the pair's historic achievement.
5. 'A Renegade History of the United States,' by Thaddeus Russell (2010)
Conservatives often ignore huge swaths of American history and thereby cede unabridged subcultures to the left — even when, historically speaking, it was progressives themselves who were the villains in the movie. Russell's unique spin on history focuses on those who were historically regarded as deplorable, and how their lack of respectability allowed them to push button for freedoms that the rest of us present take for granted. Information technology is shocking only indisputable that Nancy Reagan's fondness for wearing red, for case, a century prior would take been an unambiguous code for beingness a prostitute.
vi. 'Gay New York,' by George Chauncey (1994)
"I'grand a conservative, what exercise I care about gay history?" you might ask. Both Clintons campaigned on, championed, and were instrumental in passing anti-gay legislation while in office. Equally reported in BuzzFeed and elsewhere, when John Kerry privately asked Nib Clinton in 2004 for advice on how to become elected president, Clinton told him to run confronting gay marriage.
Yet the media and entertainment industry now uphold the Clintons as brave heroes in the fight for gay rights, and conservatives don't know plenty of the history to call out their hypocrisy. Don't wait leftist outlets to point out how information technology was progressives who took the lead in destroying an open gay subculture nearly a century ago. The conservative opposition to gay rights should not include an opposition to learning the surprising historic facts.
7. 'Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston,' by Valerie Boyd (2002)
Hurston rose from the rural South to become the queen of Harlem Renaissance — a menstruation that compatriot Langston Hughes ironically referred to every bit the time "When the Negro Was in Vogue." Southern racism and Jim Crow remain a abiding refrain, merely the black experience in the North during this menstruation is far more rarely discussed.
Equally soon equally the Great Low hit, Harlem'due south young blackness creatives were tossed aside without a moment's thought past those who swear by The New Yorker. The utterly unique Hurston was derided as racist for her insistence on capturing the voices of Southern blacks in their native dialect, and was against forced integration: "Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but information technology does not brand me aroused. It merely astonishes me. How can whatever deny themselves the pleasure of my company?"
African American history is American history, and Hurston's story is quintessentially American and enormously thought-provoking.
8. 'Public Opinion,' by Walter Lippmann (1922)
Conservatives routinely talk over how the press forms a "narrative," and the belatedly Andrew Breitbart constantly attacked what he called the "Democrat-Media Circuitous." Notwithstanding almost a century ago, Lippmann was freely musing about how the media creates an surround for the masses and how that environment can be used for social purposes. Before propaganda was a dirty word, Lippmann was advocating for its application — and seeing his plans from 1922 volition chill conservatives who believe this all to be a relatively recent phenomenon.
9. 'Good White People,' by Shannon Sullivan (2014)
From Colbert to the Washington Mail, progressives routinely receive scripts to lengthened conservative criticisms. The routine has go so distilled that simply using the terms "racist" or "white supremacy" is plenty to finish conversation and declare oneself the winner.
What these types are utterly unprepared for, however, is criticism from the principled left. Sullivan is relentless in deconstructing the classist basis of contemporary, urban anti-racism, and harshly condemns progressive whites for viewing black Americans not as homo beings merely every bit tools for white salvation.
10. 'The Righteous Listen,' by Jonathan Haidt (2012)
Anyone frustrated by brazen political hypocrisy — and at that place is plenty of hypocrisy to be plant across the political spectrum — needs to read this book. Haidt's insight concerns how nosotros come to our moral and thereby political conclusions. Since these views are often a visceral response, drawn-out rational give-and-take will ofttimes be pointless or fifty-fifty counterproductive.
Conservatives oft tweet that "liberalism is a mental disorder." Only this is simply to acknowledge that ane's opponents' thinking is incomprehensible and largely immutable. Neither is true, and Haidt explains why.
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Source: https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/05/10-books-every-conservative-should-read-to-combat-leftist-misinformation/
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