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This is for both the lefties and righties: what is the most influential political book you’ve read, and why?
Mine is Alterman’s “What Liberal Media?“. I happened to read it at the time I was becoming politically active and was the first roadmap (along with Joe Conason and David Brock’s* books) to the conservative power structure I ever ran across.
* Yes, David Brock is my boss
UPDATE: Greetings Altercation readers. More tomfoolery here.
Kristy Sanchez-Trujillo
T-Mobile Outage
T-Mobile
Megan Gale
Sylvie Van Der Vaart
Clash Of The Titans
Ashley Neufeld
Afton Williamson
Kyrstin Gemar
Tesla Coil
Xperia X10
Cany Vossough
Reza Vossough
Ninel Conde
Julia Louis Dreyfus
Guardians of Childhood
Botox
Chase Utley
Prince Of Persia Sands Of Time
Cherokee
Christopher Lee
Prince Charles
Prince William
Prince Harry
Cleveland Browns
Ernie Accorsi
Reina Flynn
Reid Gray
Cole Hamels
Brett Myers
Quinn Gray
SEPTA
Burlington Northern
Star Wars The Old Republic
Nightmare On Elm Street
Gerard Butler
Amrit Dhaliwal
Louise Linton
Gwen Stefani
Curtis Lavelle Vance
Anne Pressly
H1N1 Vaccine
Melody Ross
Oasis Of The Seas
Disney Cruise
Selita Ebanks
Anthony Sowell
JJ Redick
Axe Body Spray
Christopher Walken
Dragon Age Origins
P.J. O’Rourke: A Parliment of Whores
Or
Hunter Thompson’s: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail
Hunting of the President, Conason and Lyons
Fools for Scandal, Gene Lyons
It’s always hard to name must one, but pretty easy to find a way to mention at least two.
Non-fiction: The Best and the Brightest
Fiction: All the King’s Men
Paul Krugman’s Peddling Prosperity
Kevin Phillip’s Wealth and Democracy
A Choice Not An Echo == Barry Goldwater
The Suicide Of The West == James Burnham
Wish I could answer that with just one, but I can’t. I’m guessing that my list might seem a little unusual, but here goes:
“Adam Smith,” The Wealth of Nations,
Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto,
William Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and
Richard Nixon, Memiors of Richard Nixon.
They are influential because they explain the economy and its interaction with politics, and how people’s perceptions of the economy, rather than reality, influence their political decisions.
Must .. try .. to .. make .. snarky .. comment ..
I just can’t do it. This all so — dare I say it? — reasonable…
The Politics of Energy by Barry Commoner.
It is the archetypal lynchpin for human survival, and it seems
we (the voter) are complicit with politicians in their failure
to utilize the window of time available for the transition to alternative energy. It’s just a matter of time now.
The American Political Tradition, Richard Hofstadter
Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, by Rick Perlstein
Master of the Senate, Robert Caro
How Democratic is the American Constitution? by Robert Dahl
Call For Revolution by Martin L. Gross – First exposed me to the almost criminal way the government wastes tax dollars.
How Washington Really Works by Charles Peters.
All The Trouble In The World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague and Poverty by PJ O’Rourke.
Marxism: Philosophy & Economics by Thomas Sowell.
The True Believer – Eric Hoffer
1984 – Orwell
(Animal Farm, Witness by Chambers, Perjury – Weinstein – all close seconds)
Dugger, Showing My Age
Dugger,
Your showing my age as well.
The True Beliver is now required reading in a lot of polyci classes.
Did you ever watch Hoffer’s the interviews with Sevareid. For you young’uns it was in B&W tee V.
Chessie,
Yes. In the early sixties as I recollect and BW. Sevareid was Cronkite’s ‘commenter”. Hoffer was a great guy to listen too. Passion and great common sense.
Dugger
How did I know a liberal would break the ice by being contentious?
The Republican Noise Machine by your boss. I was just starting to come out of my conservative coma and began suspecting something was up when I read that. I SHOVED me over the edge to the good side.
“Day of Reckoning” by Benjamin Friedman.
This late 80’s work was a great survey of government finances in the modern era through about 88 or so. By comparing Reagan/Stockman’s 1981 5-year plan, showing the predicted effects of supply side economics, and comparing that with what actually happened, Friedman showed conclusively that the huge deficits that ensued were caused solely by the failures of supply side theory.
“America: What Went Wrong?” by Bartlett and Steele.
This book expanded on a solidly researched series on class disparity in America for the Phila. Inquirer. Their first chapter was titled “Dismantling the Middle Class”. They covered all the tricks of the tax code, weakening of labor protections, the false promise of deregulation, “free” trade, etc. and how the political class actively caused it all to happen on behalf of the elites. This book was out 14 years ago, so to all of our newly converted populists out there, don’t say we weren’t warned.
Bartlett and Steele’s book also answered my question left from Friedman’s book: why did supply side economics carry so much weight when all concerned knew before, during and after the supply side experiments that they wouldn’t work? Of course we know the answer now is that the whole schtick was a facade to enable the continued drive towards tax regressivity and further class disparity in America.
“The Fox and the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy” by Si Kahn and Elizabeth Minnich
is a great read showing how the elites are destroying the commons through privatizing everything that isn’t nailed down, and then privatizing what’s left as well.
The first two books are fairly old and I don’t know if they’re even in print anymore. Not so “Fox and the Henhouse”. Buy that book today.
Kind Regards,
Richard
I would also have to say PJ O’Rourke’s books I read when I was much younger. First books which made me look at our government as being radically imperfect.
Sol Alinsky awakened the progressive potential in me. Mein Kampf acquainted me with Dark Side. Ayn Rand bored me to tears.
I’d have to put Orwell’s Animal Farm at the top of my list.
And yes- I remember Sevareid in Black and White also.
Don’t Think of an Elephant by George Lackoff.
First books which made me look at our government as being radically imperfect.
That whole Civil War thing didn’t give you a clue?
When you think about those hour long discussions with the longshorman philosopher and then compare them to what passes for intelect today………..
I stopped watching network news and talking heads in the late 80’s. Got in some good reading over the past 20 years, but I have to admit I love the bloggs.
Forgot to turn off the Italic
I wonder how many of you are familiar with Jerome Tucille’s It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand”?
It’s a great story of the odyssey of a conservative through Rand to Buckley and beyond.
Dave Barry Slept Here, by Dave Barry
What’s The Matter With Kansas? by Thomas Frank
Everything You Know is Wrong by the Disinformation Company, and lately Freakonomics by Steven J Dubner
Did you ever hear Lenny Bruce — Live at Berkeley?
His parable on the origin of Laws and Government is hysterical — and scary…
As only he could be
Influential? Nothing really. I find it a PITA to read things I agree more than 75% with, but a couple of my firsts were:
The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America – Phillip K Howard
and
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal – Ayn Rand
How many of you are familiar with Jerome Tucille’s It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand?
It describes of the odyssey of we “old school” conservatives from Rand to Buckley and beyond.
Although some may not consider it a political book, Lord of the Flies by William Golding is an interesting analogy of human nature.
It was about a group of boys who had been marooned on an island following a plane crash. One of the most significant political overtones were rules they made up. The conch shell became a symbol of democracy and fairness as whoever held the conch had the floor and everyone else was to let him speak. Eventually though some decided to make up their own rules in order to maintain absolute power. The result was that democracy and fairness were replaced with absolute rule by the few and eventually resulted in savagery and anarchy.
Capital – Karl Marx
The Power Elite – C. Wright Mills
The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide – Robert Jay Lifton
1984 – George Orwell
Fiction – The Bluest Eye
Non-Fiction – Steal This Book
The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli
Black Reconstruction, W.E.B. Du Bois
Native Son, Richard Wright
Black Wealth/White Wealth, Oliver & Shapiro
Too many to single out… I suppose the top three are….
Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to SerfdomThomas Sowell’s Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage OneA Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles
Oh, and for humor, anything by PJ O’Rourke…. Republican Party Reptile is a good one, as is Parliament of Whores, already mentioned above.
FYI… Preview doesn’t seem to show WYSIWYG format, Oliver
1. Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek2. Thomas Sowell’s Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One3. Thomas Sowell’s A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles (Good book on the fundamental reasons why Left & Right have difficulty agreeing)
For humor, anything by PJ O’Rourek – Republican Party Reptile, Parliament of Whores, and one of my favorites, Give War a Chance.
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right by Al Franken.
Not just about politics, but a good look at some of the Republican’s staunchest supporters:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0525947647/002-6431436-7323256?v=glance&n=283155
Chessie,
Likewise on tuning the network guys out. At some point, they became disinteresting, not solely becasue they were all vanilla liberals (IMO) but also because they were so predictable – still are.
BW,
Lord of the Flies is great. It seems to be one of those books that can be looked at from different sides and different messages gleaned.
It fits my admittedly pessimistic view of human nature.
Dugger
My field is organizational politics – internal and external communications.
My first campaign job was to sit in a 1950 Ford, watch the door to the polling station and get the high sign from my dad. A closed fist with the thumb extended meant, the fine citizen on whose shoulder I have
my hand gets a half pint of Ol’ Bear Wallow”. The other was V for give this fine citizen two dollars.
I have been through all the reading listed above – my nominee is “Team of Rivals – The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”, Doris Kearns Goodwin
Lantern Bearer
Just for the record, about three of my posts — in other threads — have yet to see the light of day..
Thanks in advance
“The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” by Robert Tressell.
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville.
When I first read it 20 some years ago I was struck by how contemporary America seemed more like Tocqueville’s France than like early America.
Recently:
American Dynasty / Kevin Phillips
Hegemony or Survival / Noam Chomsky
And thanks for reminding me PD100, I just finished Hegemony or Survival and it knocked my socks off.
Fiction – anything purporting Reagan to have been intelligent or principled.
Nonfiction – What’s the Matter with Kansas?
“That whole Civil War thing didn t give you a clue?”
I was quite young and still in the throes of my Reagan/Bush infallibility swoon.
I was really expecting to see “The Bible” by God somewhere…
Non-Fiction: Marx and Smith are obvious choices and rightly so. How about something obscure like Why I am not a Christian by Bertrand Russell? There’s all sorts of random stuff in there including an essay called “The Fate of Thomas Paine”.
Fiction: Cat’s Cradle by Vonnegut
Richard Hoftsteder – “The History of Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”
Wendell Berry – “The Unsettling of America”
In recent years I think Thomas Frank’s “What’s The Matter With Kansas” helped me better understand some things.
Another one: David Renyolds John Brown biography.
George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia” is a great one. Then “The World Turned Upside Down,” by Christopher Hill. After those two, the rest just seems like old news.
I’ll second the AnalogKid’s selection of Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, and Robert Hessen’s “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”
However, I classify this one as fiction or parody. It’s a cult classic.
*Riverkeepers, by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
It’s a great book on the impact of legislation and legal challenges that are necessary to keep America beautiful, and tracks RFK’s progress in doing so and saving the environment. Excellent reading.
First, The Chomsky Reader, followed by Chomsky’s Deterring Democracy, and just about everything he’s published before and since.
In my field of labor unionism, Selling Free Enterprise — The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945-1960 by Elizabeth Fones-Wolf and Taking The Risk Out Of Democracy by the late Alex Carey.
In education and pedagogy, Alfie Kohn’s No Contest — The Case Against Competition, followed by his magnum opus Punished by Rewards.
Nonfiction: Chomsky and Herrman, The Political Economy of Human Rights, Vol. 1 (Vol. 2, not so much). First opened my eyes to the collaboration between press and power in determining worthy and unworthy victims.
Fiction: Gravity’s Rainbow. Fiction since 1974 has been pretty much footnotes to Pynchon.
Age of Uncertainty, by J.K. Galbraith; it had lost a little when I reread it recently, but in the 70s it hit me like a ton of bricks…
Then, it was Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex. But that was then.
More recently, I have to agree with QuakerinaBasement about The Hunting of the President and Fools for Scandal, which made me acutely aware the magnitude of the evil that our media has become.
RLIABFI, by Al Franken. The first anti-rightwing book I read.
It’s obviously time for an updated expanded version to document Rush’s adventures in doctor-shopping, rehab, boys’ vacations in the Dominican Republic, etc. And it’s high time for a good film adaptation.
Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky/Ed Herman
The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx/Freidrich Engles
Parliament of Whores, P.J. O’Rourke
Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith
Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen
A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn
The Jungle and The Flivver King, Upton Sinclair
The Assasination of Iulius Caesar, Michael Parenti
A Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell
The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith.
The Marxists by C. Wright Mills
There were several other significant books, but those two are what really got me started.
I would have to agree with Marty. Animal Farm is truth. Otherwise, the most influential political book is Robert Penn Warren’s “All the King’s Men.”
I read it every presidential election year.
As a political science instructor at a community college, I was fascinated by the excellent list of political books, from every possible point of view, compiled in this thread. I would like to recommend the work of probably the best — and certainly the most unjustly neglected — American political novelist writing today: Ward Just. His thirteen political novels, from 1970’s A SOLDIER OF THE REVOLUTION to AN UNFINISHED SEASON in 2004, comprise a body of work that can easily stand comparison with the best fiction of Orwell, Golding, Graham Greene, Robert Penn Warren or Edwin O’Connor. His novels aren’t just fascinating political stories; they’re true literature. Try him, you’ll like him — at your local library or bookstore today!
Speaking of political novelists, how many of you have read Allen Drury’s novels? Wowzer!
Frank,
Re Drury. Every one of ‘em. From Advise and Consent to the various dystopias. They kept me rapt in the sixties.
Dugger
Franken’s book was a ‘temporary’ attack only in that Limbaugh has continued to provide good reasons for an expanded update — having exposed himself as a drug addict, divorced yet another wife, worked out a deal with prosecutors to avoid a possible prison sentence, and demonstrated his continued endulgence in personal behavior he publicly condemns in others.
Franken confronted the loudmouth fat man who spreads a lot of the bullshit produced by the republican noise machine. It broke the ground before David Brock and others gave insight to the depth and breadth of the bullshit.
buma,
“RLIABFI, by Al Franken.”
Is that really your most influential book? Were you pro Limbaugh before or something? Seriously. I’m sure you loved it but it is justa very temporary atatck book – like Coulter’s tomes.
Dugger, Not picking a fight – just curious
buma,
OK. As I say, I don’t question your liking it – because Coulter is a guilty pleasure for me – but she doesn’t influence my basic ploitical philosophy. It was just the ‘most influential” part that had me wondering.
Dugger
Some personal favorites
The Real Majority – Scammon and Wattenberg’s perceptive analysis of the 1968 election:
“…many Americans have begun casting their ballots along the lines of issues relatively new to the American scene. For several decades Americans have voted basically along the lines of bread-and-butter economic issues. Now, in addition to the older, still potent economic concerns, Americans are apparently beginning to array themselves politically along the axes of certain social situations as well. … We call it the social issue.”
Other personal favorites are Eat the Rich by PJ O’Rourke, Virtuous Reality by Jon Katz, and Wealth and Poverty by George Gilder.
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