The American Spectator

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Christmas Books 2007, Part III

12.13.07 @ 12:07AM

From The American Spectator's December 2007-January 2008 issue: Part III of our annual list of holiday gift suggestions from distinguished readers and writers. To subscribe to our monthly print edition, click here.

Robert D. Novak
The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years of Reporting in Washington by Robert D. Novak. Yes, I have broken the unwritten rule against an author recommending his own book (though I am told Jacques Barzun committed the same offense). But this is the only memoir I will ever publish, and I hope it would be enjoyable reading for the many political junkies who subscribe to The American Spectator.

The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes. This is the book of the year: a terrific journalist's insightful, unsentimental look, without blinders, at Franklin D. Roosevelt's mean-spirited onslaught on public utilities, chicken pluckers, and other businessmen that unnecessarily prolonged the Great Depression.

Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case by Stuart Taylor Jr. and KC Johnson. This is a fascinating account by a leading legal affairs writer and a history professor of the scandalous performance by a runaway prosecuting attorney. Beyond that, it lays bare the politically correct hypocrisy of academia and the news media.

Lords of the Land: The War For Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007 by Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar. Translated from the Hebrew by Vivian Eden. This is the eye-opening 2004 bestseller by two courageous Israelis, a prominent historian and a leading columnist. It exposes the prolonged military occupation and massive construction of settlements that pose such an obstacle to peace.

Witness by Whittaker Chambers. This epochal human narrative of the Cold War should be read by every American, and I shall always put it on my Christmas list. It is a wonderful spy story, an exposition of high-level politics, and an account of one courageous American surmounting pain and suffering in the Cold War.

Robert D. Novak is a nationally syndicated columnist and a commentator for Fox News.

Andrew Roberts
I read biographies and history books for a living, and one of the best I have read in the past decade has been Conrad Black's Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full. By no means a whitewash since Black points out some pertinent character failings of the president, this hugely well-researched, fluidly written, and above all highly intelligent book was a complete pleasure to read. It is long, but Nixon's astonishing life deserves nothing less, and in Black he has found a generally sympathetic but above all judicious and engaging biographer.

Our very own Bob Tyrrell has also written about a president, but in The Clinton Crack-Up one realizes how far superior Nixon was to Bill Clinton in every possible way (not excluding personal honesty). For the U.S. to allow that couple back into the White House would be a clear sign that moral degeneracy faces your nation.

John Adamson's The Noble Revolt: The Overthrow of Charles I posits the revisionist view that it was the aristocracy who destroyed the Divine Right of Kings; a fascinating thesis strongly argued. In Michael Barone's equally thought-provoking Our First Revolution, it is passionately argued that the template for the Founding Fathers' revolt of 1776 was the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 in Britain, and it puts that later upheaval into perfect perspective.

A truly gorgeous book for its sumptuous pictures, but also very well written, is Barney White-Spunner's Horse Guards, a comprehensive 350-year history of the Blues and Royals, Britain's two oldest and grandest cavalry regiments in the Household Division. A truly sumptuous book, which shows that for all the pomp and circumstance attached to those historic regiments, they are still tremendously effective fighting machines today.

Finally, Norman Podhoretz's World War IV places the War on Terror squarely into its proper historical, political, and military perspectives, and provides a powerful reason for electing as your next president only someone who instinctively understands these vital truths.

Andrew Roberts is most recently the author of History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900.

Larry J. Sabato
The Prince by Machiavelli (1505). In The Prince, Machiavelli conveys the problems with the ruling class and suggests a series of solutions to bring about the reunification of Italy under the Medici family of Florence. Machiavelli suggests a variety of tactics for the prince to secure his power and argues that because humans are inherently evil, the ends are able to justify the means. Machiavelli proposes that politics and religion are separate and that future rulers should be concerned with securing power, not adhering to a strict moral code.

The Responsible Electorate: Rationality in Presidential Voting, 1936-1960 by V. O. Key, Jr. (1966). Through analyzing public opinion data and electoral returns, V.O. Key made the case for rationality in voters' choice and suggested that voters choose to re-elect incumbents based on their performance in office.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Bill Clinton, Economics, Business, Religion, Books, Constitution, Law, Founding Fathers, Military, Israel, NATO