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Is America in Decline?
May 10, 2011 | 127 comments
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The Meaning of It All
December 4, 2010 | 0 comments
Feature
Books for Christmas
Our annual list of holiday gift suggestions from distinguished readers and writers.
BRIAN ANDERSON
Anyone who
appreciates brilliant food and larger-than-life personalities will
love journalist Bill Buford’s Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as
Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a
Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany (Vintage), one of the most
enjoyable books I’ve read in years. Working on a New
Yorker profile of Mario Batali, the middle-aged Buford gets
the crazy idea of becoming a “kitchen slave” at the famous chef’s
flagship restaurant, Babbo, and writing about the experience.
Heat, the end result, brings us a wonderfully detailed and
funny inside view of what makes a great kitchen succeed: ceaseless
hard work, entrepreneurial drive, and creative genius. And better
still, it provides vivid portraits not only of Batali — whose
Falstaffian capacity for drink and food is exceeded only by his
superhuman energy — but also of the chef’s extraordinary
lieutenants and early mentors and inspirations.
I’m a basketball junkie — a lifelong Boston Celtics fan — and had long awaited a book like Bill Simmons’s mammoth The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy (ESPN). Best known as ESPN’s “Sports Guy,” Simmons often writes in a free-associational frenzy, but his 700-page book abounds with insights about the game and fascinating player rankings (learn, definitively, why Celtics center Bill Russell was a much better player than his rival Wilt Chamberlain); useful counterfactuals (imagine if the Portland Trailblazers had selected Michael Jordan in the 1984 NBA draft instead of passing him over for injury-plagued center Sam Bowie); and laugh-out-loud humor (the author was a writer for comedian and talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel). Few could read this book front to back, but frequent dives will make you a (much) more informed hoops fan. Malcolm Gladwell provides an amusing introduction on Simmons as a basketball fan — or more accurately, fanatic.
In The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism (Princeton University Press), the novelist and philosopher Pascal Bruckner anatomizes the self-hatred that afflicts Western intellectuals when confronting enemies — like Islamic fanatics — who seek to eradicate democratic society and its freedoms. The West’s greatness is linked inextricably to its self-critical capacity, as Bruckner recognizes, but a kind of pathological “hypercriticism” has become increasingly prevalent that assumes we’re always wrong, always to blame, always the bad guy. Bruckner’s brilliant short book calls for the restoration of a prudent but vigorous Western self-respect; the alternative is civilizational suicide.
Brian Anderson is the editor of City Journal.
DOUG BANDOW
Normal people usually
want to read entertaining books for pleasure. Policy nerds in
Washington, like me, are more likely to favor dull but informative
tomes. Of course, the sad fact is that many of us Washingtonians
tend to find dull to be the real interesting.
Not dull is Andrew Bacevich’s Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War (Metropolitan Books). Bacevich is one of the most trenchant critics of the many conservatives who have adopted Woodrow Wilson as their patron saint. Washington Rules builds on his earlier work to critique America’s seeming policy of permanent war.
Bacevich is a Catholic and former Army colonel who lost a son in Iraq. It’s hard to find a more serious or traditional conservative. But he persuasively warns against the corrosive impact of an overly militarized policy on the American republic.
It’s an argument that any believer in a government of limited powers committed to protecting individual liberty must take seriously. Especially during the Obama era. These days it is easy to denounce the depredations of the left. But conservatives also must rethink what they stand for.
In the same genre is Michael Mandelbaum’s The Frugal Superpower: America’s Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era (PublicAffairs). Mandelbaum makes no pretense of being a conservative, but he discusses the practical difficulty of Washington playing globocop when it is broke.
Conservatives rightly target burgeoning social programs in the deficit debate. But there’s no reason to exempt “defense” when so much military spending goes to defend other countries — the populous and prosperous Europeans, Japanese, and South Koreans, in particular. Mandelbaum gets a lot wrong, but his basic point is irrefutable. Uncle Sam is a bankrupt wastrel who no longer can afford to subsidize foreign welfare queens.
Of course, this doesn’t mean there aren’t serious international challenges facing America. Stefan Halper takes on the People’s Republic of China in The Beijing Consensus: How China’s Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century (Basic Books).
Halper’s conclusion actually isn’t as certain as his title. The PRC need not win the global great game. But he raises an important alarm about the challenge that Beijing may eventually pose to America. China remains far behind the U.S. militarily and will be poor, even with a large economy, for years to come. However, America’s policy toward the PRC tends to be fragmented and short-sighted. Washington needs to do better if China lives up to its geopolitical potential.
America’s biggest current international challenge is Afghanistan. Packed with information about that distant Central Asian land is Thomas Barfield’s Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton University Press). The book challenges some hoary myths. For instance, Afghanistan wasn’t much of a “graveyard of empires” until the 1800s. Before that the territory was more a battleground for empires. Reigning empires were dispatched to the geopolitical cemetery by other empires, not the locals. Whatever one thinks of the Bush/Obama effort at nation-building — I believe it’s foolish — it’s impossible not to sympathize with people who have suffered through war for most of the last four decades.
One of the best releases of the year is Eric Metaxas’s Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy (Thomas Nelson). Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a devout Christian who helped form the “confessing church,” which resisted the Nazis in Germany. But Bonhoeffer went further, joining the political resistance. He was murdered shortly before the war ended.
Metaxas tells a great story extraordinarily well. Bonhoeffer is a particularly appropriate book for Christmas. For all the talk of “persecution” of Christians in America, most believers live privileged lives in a society that remains one of the freest on earth. Bonhoeffer faced persecution by one of the most monstrous regimes in human history, but responded courageously, in contrast to so many others who professed the same faith.
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Appleby| 12.22.10 @ 7:02AM
Most of these recommended books are guaranteed to make you angry, which is not exactly in the spirit of Christmas, is it?
I re-read the All of a Kind Family, Roller Skates, The Melendy Family (4 books) and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn quite often; they remind me not only of what normal people did in normal families, but that those today who squall that they cannot feed 4 people for less than $600 a month would have starved and died if they lived at the turn of the 20th century. (There is a chapter in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn that explains how Mrs. Nolan fed 4 people for the pennies her kids earned collecting and selling junk -- basing most of her meals on stale bread!)
My recommendations are: Eloise at Christmas -- the feisty little girl who grows up on the top floor of the Plaza Hotel, whose Mostly Companion is her loving Nanny; a nice story with pointed little painful moments that remind you that children who never see their mothers love them anyway; Billy Grahams *Approaching Hoofbeats* which predicted the end of the Age in 1985; and for your Child 2.0, *Its A Book*, which explains to ages 3-5 and their Leapfrog Parents why a Kindle will never take the place of a book.
For Kanukistanis, there is a beautiful new book that illustrates with paintings Gordon Lightfoots Canadian Railroad Trilogy. I dare you to read it without singing along with your Inner Lightfoot.
Or you can re-read any of your Lord Peter Wimsy mysteries.
Professor Fitzhugh Balderding| 12.24.10 @ 11:02AM
May I recommend the following:
Love in the Time of Death Panels
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
It's about an old man whose been in a vegetative state for 16 years. His wife valiantly fights the death panel's decision to remove his feeding tube. The wife also demands that the hospital supply fresh flowers to her husband's hospital room on a daily basis. It's a psychological thriller.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished (a children's book) by Margie
It's about a little girl who loans her lovely doll to her friend, and her friend, in a fit of anger, bashes the doll's head on a radiator pipe.
JESUS HELPED ME PULL THE TRIGGER by Ken (Old Texican)
It's a true story by Ken (Old Texican). He tells about the time he spotted an illegal alien--a Mexican teenager--crossing his property, and he aimed his shotgun at him and fired . . . and missed, which explains the significance of the title.
Toys for BIG BOYS by Ben Stein
Hardcover $135.00
It's a humongous coffee table book full of glossy photos of Ben's boats, motorcycles, skis, electrical gadgets--all extremely (outrageously) expensive! There is a brief, cryptic caption under each photo. Plus, there are many photos of the proud, grinning bigger-tahn-life Ben.
Pepe Le Pew| 12.24.10 @ 11:38AM
Professor, please add my little book:
The Magnificent Memoir of Pepe Le Pew
by Pepe Le Pew
"Pepé Le Pew has all the qualities of a great lover. He is a born romantic. His enthusiasm knows no bounds. His ego is as big as the Eiffel Tower. He showers les femmes with flowery come-ons, champagne, and gifts. He purrs. He coos. He cajoles... All in that entrancing French accent. "
The Guardian
Vava Vavoom| 12.24.10 @ 11:42AM
Pepe is a cutie and a sweetie!
I'll buy the book.
Is it available at Barnes and Noble? Can anyone tell me? Anyone seen it there?
Ronald King, Jr.| 12.24.10 @ 11:52AM
I saw Pepe's book at Books- a- Million, picked it up, thumbed through it and considered buying it. It's nicely illustrated--lots of photos of Pepe and his girlfriend--a cat--can't remember her name. I was tempted, but I didn't buy it.
Instead I bought Trailer Park Trash, the autobiography of country singer Betty Jean Haggers. Can't wait to sit down with a glass of port and Betty Jean's book in my lap. It's going to be some eye-poppin' reading, I guarantee.
Gertrude Steinway| 12.24.10 @ 12:53PM
I read the book and loved it!
Pepé usually falls for feline femme fatales, but not always. In Chapter two, Scent-Imental Over You, he falls for a Park Avenue dog wearing a skunk fur coat.
In Chapter four, Odor-Able Kitty, he falls for what he thinks is a female feline, but is in fact a male alley cat, and when Pepe learns that his love object is male, his reaction is momentary surprise. Pepe and the male alley cat, I am happy to report, become soul mates and enjoy a lovely, platonic romance.
Pepe, one of the world's greatest lovers, forever chases his dreams!
Highly recommended.
Petronius| 12.22.10 @ 9:35AM
I'm spending this subfreezing holiday season curled up in the cheap seats. The good stuff being remaindered from Hamiltons up in Hew Nampshire bringeth pleasure from $5 and up. The Conquest of the Missouri, by Joseph Mills Hanson is a recounting of the charting of that River above Omaha and it's tributaries by Captain Grant Marsh. Now here is a REAL American. He lived life on his own terms, fully engaged at all times and doing whatever the situation required to achieve success. The chapters about his transport of Custer's 7th Cavalry expedition aboard The Far West and returning with the news of their defeat at Little Big Horn puts our own situation in a similar perspective. As the pharisees in D.C. look down upon Real Americans as an entity to be subjugated, might history repeat itself? Sadly the Far West was run onto a snag by a rookie pilot and went down at Ft. Belfontaine years later.
In the same vein is the biography of Marine Lt. General Brute Krulak who sacrificed his chance to become Commandant of the Corps by insisting that LBJ quit diddling and play for keeps during the Viet Nam War. For his trouble Krulak got thrown bodily out of the oval office by his Commander in Chief and took forced retirement. The one thing paramount concerning the flag officers in our services today is that none are allowed to be soldiers before being PC.
Last, as an aside for those who could use a morale builder, have at any of H. L. Mencken's Prejudices. These books are timeless and would that he were still alive and writing today and so reprove every last word in them.
Billie Blandon| 12.22.10 @ 9:51AM
The problem with your list of selections is that it nearly ignores younger readers. Granted that teens could read the books you mention, but few of my friends are politically inclined. They need to be brought into conservative thought more graduallly. ANYTHING by Bill Bennett qualifies; either of the first two books in Jay's Montooth series is fun and cleverly points in the right direction; and, of course, C.S. Lewis who is getting a push from the movies.
Appleby| 12.22.10 @ 2:48PM
The Hardy Boys books are being re-issued in their original autograph -- also if you can find any of the Tom Swift books in THEIR original autograph (he was a young inventor). Make sure they are the originals though; the "updated" ones have been Sanitized for Your Protection.....
Bruce Cavenaugh III| 12.24.10 @ 1:39PM
Instead or reading The Hardy Boys, I read The Nancy Boys Detective Series.
The Nancy Boys, in my opinion, offered a greater sense of mystery and adventure. They were always on the trail of some malevolent character, but while in pursuit of the criminal they took frequent breaks to browse antique shops looking for items, such as antique tea cozies, vintage jam jars, esoteric found objects, and whatnot. They were all avid collectors of peculiar items and jealously guarded their eclectic collections.
The Nancy Boys series, alas, is long out of print. (I'll be 92 years old my next birthday, and I read the series when I was 9 or 10--a long, long time ago.)
Bill| 12.22.10 @ 2:18PM
I respectfully suggest that The Tyranny of Guilt should be read as a companion piece to The Tears of the White Man by the same author.
Reverend Billy C. Calhoun| 12.24.10 @ 1:44PM
May I suggest THE HOLY BIBLE.
Some of the books you all are reading are nothing but filth. Filth!
dan shanteal| 12.22.10 @ 2:49PM
I'm re-reading Teddy White's "In Search of History", especially about China. I also went to the Medford, Oregon library and got "Stillwell and the American Experience in China". Next is John Paton Davies' book on China. But your article's list is a cornucopia of wonderful reading.
James Baker| 12.23.10 @ 12:59AM
Tom Swift? Which ones, the older Swift or his son. There was actually two series, one was set in the early 1920s I think and the other was his son later on. I had access many years ago to both collections at a local library and dearly loved both series. Never have been able to collect more than 1-2 of the first series. (Yeah, I am 37 and have read books most kids of my generation had never heard of.)
general summerall| 12.23.10 @ 2:05AM
A recommendation for one of the Laura Ingels Wilder books I just finished: The Big Winter, about the trials the family went through in the 1870s out on the prairie during a very rough winter that buried their little town for seven months, and brought out some not nice emotions among the family and townspeople not always unsugared by Mrs. Wilder in her writings. Spoiler alert; Almonzo saves the town.
Bipolar 2, 4, and 8| 12.24.10 @ 4:19PM
Warning:
Terrible intensity!
I read this book and the constant descriptions of the family's bouts with cabin fever triggered a major PANIC ATTACK that amost landed me in the psychiatric ward of our local hospital!
Never again will I read Laura Ingels Wilder. Far Too Intense for my delicate sensibility!
Appleby| 12.23.10 @ 3:56AM
I think you wandered onto the wrong track.
Christmas | 12.23.10 @ 5:28AM
I am looking forward to read this book. Holiday season is ahead and I hope If I gift it my friends will like them too.
Brian| 12.23.10 @ 9:53AM
If you are a fan of U2 and don't know much about them, do yourself a favor and pick up U2 by U2. It contains the most in-depth interviews and has some wonderful pictures too. And splurge for the coffee table sized hardcover edition. It's worth it.
Tana French has written three Murder Squad books set in Ireland and this years' Faithful Place is her best. It is beautifully written and full of longing to belong. It stayed with me for days after finishing it.
And finally three books on Protestant Christianity to counterbalance the books by the friends of Rome:
John: An Expositional Commentary by R.C. Sproul. Dr. Sproul believes in the tradition of lectio continua and has been preaching through books of the Bible verse-by-verse and has turned those sermons into books and they contain a great deal of insight.
Christless Christianity by Michael Horton. A polemic against the sentimental, trivial Christianity preached in so many churches today, that forgets the Reformed confessions that put Christ and his atoning sacrifice at the center of faith (the five solas).
Dug Down Deep by Joshua Harris. An accessible introduction to the core doctrines of Christianity. It is patient and walks slowly through these teachings but stays true to an orthodox reading of Scripture.
Tatiana Goldenberg| 12.24.10 @ 4:09PM
U2? (Don't make me sick!)
And those dreary, orthodox (read fundamentalist) tomes?
Your book list reflects the mind of a classic anal- retentive dullard.
Sorry. I know it's Christmas Eve, and I am trying so hard to be kind and generous, but your post has dragged me down into the dregs.
I think I'll take a Xanax and go to bed.
Intelligent Design| 12.24.10 @ 6:50AM
Signature In the Cell by Stephen Meyer is superb -- a rebuttal to Darwinism based on science, not Bible thumping.
The Grand Jihad by Andrew McCarthy exposes Islam for what it truly is -- subversive to the Constitution and freedom everywhere.
Kelly Staples| 12.24.10 @ 5:35PM
"Modern Times" by Paul Johnson, the best one volume history of the 20th century. Also, "Joseph Stalin: Man and Legend" by Ronald Hingley. Hingley shows that "Uncle Joe" was as intelligent as he was evil, and ran rings around FDR and St. Churchill.
BackToBasics| 12.25.10 @ 5:17PM
I'll see if it is in the local library. It is not surprising to me about Stalin besting FDR but I think Churchill was on to him. Stopping the Russians from taking Eastern Europe was one of the biggest reasons why Churchill launched a solely British offensive, that ran into trouble, in 1943 in Southeastern Europe. He tried to get America to go into this offensive with him but FDR and Eisenhauer denied him the help and even told him not to go through with it.
Churchill wanted to beat the Russians into Eastern Europe. He also was a major voice in warning about Russia's intentions after the war and he coined the phrase "Iron Curtain."
But for all his savvy, it would not surprise me if Stalin still bested Churchill too. But he most certainly bested FDR and Truman too.
It reminds me of how true the Bible verse of Luke 16: 8 is, "And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world 165 are in their generation wiser than the children of light.
It's intersting how the communist, former communists, Islam and even third world leaders can beat the pants off most western leaders including America. By the same tken the Dems can usually beat the pants off of the Republicans too. But these same Dems are no masters when it comes to the foreign leaders.
As an aside, another good verse that touches more than tangentially on the "spirit" of Government-run health care and excessive entitlement mentality as it is practiced today in the West which includes America is Luke 9:24. "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it." Jesus is referring directly to a spiritual principle but it is amazing how much this crosses over into the area I mentioned.
We are going to lose our country as we know it if we do not reign this mentality in.
MikeN| 12.25.10 @ 11:23AM
Warning on the Book of Basketball, it is one of the most vulgar mainstream books of all time. Worse than The Godfather, for example.
Bob K.| 12.25.10 @ 12:57PM
John Lukacs' "DEMOCRACY AND POPULISM Fear and Hatred."
An "Historical Essay" as he calls it. Published in 2005 before the Agelet of Obama.
Limited to the US, english speaking world and Europe-------"inhabited mostly by the white race, the extent and numbers which are now declining.".................."This limitation accords with the limits of my knowledge and interests." (Preface)
".............in this mass democratic age material conditions, almost always, matter less than mental conditions and inclinations.........." (Preface): Which helps explain Suannihen's curious hateful post against Jewish doctors above. As he states: "people do not "have" ideas but "choose" them. p.235.
He is a Conservative: An expert on Churchill and Hitler; De Tocqueville and Edmund Burke. A professor of History at Chestnut Hill college.
Andrew Bacevich would be nonplussed by his description of Woodrow Wilson and his ideas: "That Wilson's character was unattractive, that his personality was pallid and cramped, that his mind was immature, that the very workings of that mind were strange, that even the otherwise trenchant observation of his postmaster general ("a man of high ideals but of no principles") was inaccurate, since these very ideas were less than mediocre and customarily superficial---all this is but another example of the irony, even more than of the unpredictability of history." pp 104-105
"Since not only the importance of ideas but the very importance of events must be judged by their consequences let us recognize that the then-great revolution-maker, the effective destroyer of an old order, was Wilson, not Lenin." p. 104
Fascinating! It will change the way you look at politics and elections!
Perusha| 12.25.10 @ 1:05PM
Why not start with “The Four Fundamental Questions: Talks and essays about human experience and the actual practice of an Enlightened Way of life” by Da Free John, 1980?
1. Are you the One Who is living you now?
2. What is your relationship to that One?
3. Do you know what anything Is?
4. 4. What is your relationship to all experience, and to every being and thing that exist?
“The Way of Life that becomes possible if we seriously consider the four questions I have proposed is not founded on the anti-human, anti-relational, anti-bodily Eastern point of view, nor on the degenerative, self-possessed, life-exploitive Western point of view. This Way is founded on true ecstasy, the psycho-physical equanimity awakened through these considerations. It is the Way of God-Communion in its fullness, a Way that transcends the ancient divisions between East and West, heaven and earth, left brain and right brain, here and there, now and then, time and space, mind and matter” Da Free John
“It is obvious from all sorts of subtle details that he knows what IT’s all about….a rare being” Alan Watts