UPDATE (1/19/2007): Please keep your recommendations coming!
I’m setting up an Amazon store for the blog, with the idea of providing one-stop shopping for canonical titles in Anglospheria, military history, political history etc. No reason why we can’t also list movies (Zulu!) and perhaps other stuff. I’m looking for suggestions, so if you have a top-ten (or top-whatever) list that you’re willing to share, please feel free to tell us in the comments.
Thanks!
UPDATE (1/15/2007): I am going to leave this post on top for a while. Please scroll down to read newer posts.
UPDATE (1/21/2007): The link to our new Amazon store is up. I haven’t added all of your recommended books and movies yet, and the organization of the store’s content needs work, but I will deal with these issues ASAP. Please keep your recommendations coming! I will leave this post up for a while longer. (And please feel free to leave suggestions for the organization of the store as well.) Thanks again.
Top ten books. Hard to do, man. It varies. But at of today, something like this:
F.W. Maitland, Constitutional History of England
James C. Bennett, The Anlgosphere Challenge
Alan Macfarlane, The Riddle of the Modern World / The Making of the Modern World (really one book)
Michael Barone, Our Country
F.A. Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order
Ernst Junger, Storm of Steel
David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed
Jonathan R.T. Hughes, The Vital Few
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won
Order arbitrary.
Can you include links to the original texts serving as foundations of US law, starting from Magna Carta up thru Declaration of Independence, Federalist Papers, US Constitution?
Otherwise, a few random thoughts, some of which veer a bit towards Western Civ as opposed to just Anglosphere:
David McCullough’s bio of John Adams, Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis.
Victor Davis Hanson Cultures of War, Paul Davis 100 Decisive Battles: From Ancient Times to the Present.
Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith; Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke; Road to Serfdom, Hayek. Democracy in America, de Toqueville.
Self reliance and other Essays, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Never Give In! The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches, Winston S. Churchill. Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton. Anything and everything from Shakespeare, Aristotle, Plato. Don’t know if Atlas Shrugged is really “anglsophere,” but it still crystallizes for me some of the most clear statements re the value of men dealing with each other by trade and money vs. force. Introduction To Christianity by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict).
Movies: Pride and Prejudice, the Patriot, Master and Commander, Elizabeth, Ghandi.
Good luck…
Lex: Thanks.
Dee G: Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll include links to the basic texts that are not on Amazon.
There are several sites that have various of the founding documents Dee G refers to, e.g. here. Not that linking to Amazon is a bad idea for them.
This will take some thought. For starters: in the military history category, “Defeat Into Victory” by General William Slim, and “Quartered Safe Out Here” by George MacDonald Fraser. Both books are about the WWII campaign in Burma: the Slim book from the standpoint of the overall commander and the the GMF book from the standpoint of an individual soldier.
I have a brief excerpt from the Slim book here.
Here’s a book that I just mentioned, Roberta Wohlstetter’s “Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision”. (Sadly, she just passed away.) Every one interested in military intelligence should read it.
Dittos on Slim and Wohlstetter. Both classics. I want to read the Fraser. (I have yet to make the acquaintance of his Flashman, whom I understand is a rogue worth knowing.)
On war memoirs, the classic English ones from World War I should be certainly be included: Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That; Siegfried Sassoon, the three volumes of Memoirs of George Sherston; Frederick Manning, Her Privates We (a/k/a The Middle Parts of Fortune). I have not yet read Max Plowman’s Subaltern on the Somme, which is usually included with this list.
These are all great, thanks. Please keep them coming if you have more.
On the Spanish Civil War: “The Forging of a Rebel,” a memoir by Arturo Barea. My review here.
Wow, that Barea book sounds great.
Not too surprisingly, Lex made quick work of the books, though Queen Victoria’s Little Wars by Byron Farwell deserves mention. So, I’ll take a stab at the movies:
Bridge on the River Kwai
In Which We Serve/The Cruel Sea
Henry V
Edge of the World
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
The Young Mr. Pitt
Good Bye Mr. Chips
A Man for All Seasons
Four Feathers
Great Expectations
Wow Mrs. Davis, that is a darn fine list.
Which Henry V — Olivier or Branagh?
Blimp is my favorite movie of all time.
I must see Young Mr. Pitt. Did you see the recent review of it on the Conservative History Blog?
Also, I take it that is the old version of Four Feathers?
Never seen Mr. Chips. I suppose I must do so.
My top-one non-fiction book:
Lawrence Wright: “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11”
All we need to know about what we face.
As for movies, the Victory at Sea series (not the two hour movie, but the individual episodes) ought to be on your list. My personal preference would also be for anything with Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall in it, or something that has the old Lone Ranger (Clayton Moore version) episodes.
Might also want to include filmed versions of some of Shakespeare’s plays.
Mrs. Davis mentioned Good Bye Mr. Chips. I don’t recall the movie too well, but the author,James Hilton, wrote some pretty good melodramas, so you might also want to look at some of his other books or movie offshoots.
As for military history, there’s so many that it’s hard to limit them but off the top of my head would suggest: Mud A Military History by G. Wood. Short, interesting work on the role of mud in campaigns. Agree with DF about Slim and Fraser, also see The Marauders (also about WW2 Burma theater, not sure who the author is). Several of HJ Poole’s books, such as The Tiger’s Way, deserve to be considered for the list.
Others include The River War by Winston Churchill, William Manchester’s biog of MacArthur and his The Arms of Krupp, HP Willmott’s Empires in the Balance and the Javelin and the Barrier (not sure if they’re still in print), Long Gray Line by Rick Atkinson, Nightingale’s Song (don’t recall the author), Marine by B. Davis (biog of Chesty Puller), Fortunate Son by Lewis Puller, Three Corvettes by N. Monsaratt (author of The Cruel Sea), Take Her Deep by R. O’Kane, any sub story by Edward Beach (or his autobiog), Rogue Warrior by R. Marcinko and maybe his first two or three fiction books (but not anything after those), Gates of Fire by S. Pressfield (tens of thousands of Persians who’d conquered everything in their path, are on their way to conquer Greece. All they have to do is get past 300 Spartans [and some others] at Thermopylae. Can’t imagine they’d have much trouble doing that.)
Political history: Witness by Whittaker Chambers
Jonathan–don’t know if you want to have a business section, but if so, here are a couple of ideas:
*”Father, Son, & Co” by Tom Watson Jr–the story of IBM’s growth and of Watson Jr’s relationship with his father. By far the best business autobiography I have read.
*”The Innovator’s Solution” by Christensen & Raynor–a book on strategy that goes beyond platitudes. My review here.
These are all great suggestions! Please keep them coming if you have more.
David: There will be a business/finance/econ section to which I’ll add the books you listed.
I think everyone needs to read Sayid Qutb’s “Milestones” if only because it’s as close to a founding document (besides the Qu’ran) that the Islamist movement has.
For military history, Michael Oren’s “Six Days of War” is one of my personal favorites.
Never seen Mr. Chips. I suppose I must do so.
I suggest the 1939 version with Robert Donat and Greer Garson, rather than the 1969 version with Peter O’Toole and Petula Clark.
I’ll try to scare up some Kipling links.
While not necessarily about “the anglosphere” per se, I’d suggest the works of Eric Hoffer, in particular _The True Beliver_, _The Passionate State of Mind_, _The Ordeal of Change_, and _First Things, Last Things_.
For movies, what about John Huston’s _The Man Who Would Be King_, with Sean Connery and Michael Caine? (At least for “Detriments you call us? Detriments? Well I want to remind you that it was detriments like us that built this bloody Empire AND the Izzat of the bloody Raj.”)
Also the original written version… maybe _Kim_ too?
British
Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy; Essays in Criticism, Literature and Dogma.
George Eliot’s Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda
Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, In Memoriam
Thomas Hughes Tom Brown’s School Days
America
James’s “The Bostonians” deals (in a way at least) with the cultural clashes that The Cousins’ Wars argues ran within England, between England and America, and, finally, in America.
Whitman’s “Preface” to The Leaves of Grass and Emerson’s Nature both obliquely discuss our mutual language & its importance.
On the other hand, if you want to look at how we differ in what we want to talk about, compare Melville’s Billy Budd (set on a British ship) with Britten’s operatic interpretation. (The contrast is quite interesting and demonstrates, it seems to me, how much more Germanic and idealistic we tend to be; they do delight in examining the social and we the theological.)
Kipling’s book as well as the movie mentioned above “The Man Who Would be King.”
The movies: Mrs. Miniver & Since You Went Away if you want two homefront movies.
Another movie: K-19, about an ill-starred Soviet submarine, told entirely from the perspective of its crew.
Nonfiction: William Shrier’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
It’s been 30+ years but this book remains the most influential book I’ve read.
Fiction: James Dickey’s Deliverance is a masterpiece. A short novel that looks at middle aged angst, the social contract, the double edged nature of material progress, and people in nature.
Everyone should have a volume of Hemingway’s best short stories and samples of his best fiction. At his best, his is the best that ever was.
Film: A lot easier to choose in this category. All errors can be forgiven if the thing entertains.
#1 Rocky. Inspirational, gritty slice of working class life, humor, fight, and a neat little love story!
Deliverance: A bit different in emphasis than the novel but it doesn’t stray too far. Great NE Georgia scenery (I notice that my top picks except Rocky have the scenic cinematography and great sound). BTW, if you see it, the sheriff is played by James Dickey.
Lawrence of Arabia, Zulu, 2001 Space Oddysey (technically/visually showing its age, but still ….), Bridge Over the River Kwai, The Godfather, The Third Man, The 39 Steps, Maltese Falcon, Treasure of Sierra Madre.
Wow. Lots of material for the wish-list here; especially the Barea book. For an easy read that touches on that topic try “The breaking point” by Stephen Koch on the rise and demise of the relationship between Dos Passos and Hemingway, centered around Spain’s civil War.
Only thing I’d add to the list would be Whitaker Chamber’s “Witness.” Auto-biography covering his role in the American Communist party and the Hiss trials. With the Gulag Archipelago as a defining book on 20th century communism. A thick book, but goes fast since it’s hard to put down.
Here’s a few more:
Anglospheria–Monty Python, of course. Also Wodehouse and Waugh. Orwell’s essays. Thomas Macaulay (speeches and essays– the old speeches are hardly ever read today, but they should be, they get you caught up in the issues of his day). Life at the Bottom –T. Dalrymple; Mr. Standfast–J. Buchan (thought it was better than the 39 Steps, or his other Richard Hanna novels); Moonfleet– J. Meade Falkner; Confessions of a Justified Sinner –J. Hogg. Life and Times of Augustus J.Carp by Himself; Chrestomathy– H.L. Mencken;
Military- Stalingrad — A. Beevor; With the Old Breed and China Marine –E. Sledge; Inside Delta Force– E. Haney; James Jones’s fiction including The Thin Red Line, and From Here to Eternity. Grant and Lee–JFC Fuller; Military Misfortunes and Supreme Comnand –E. Cohen; David Hackworth’s books.
Political History — Reflections on a Ravaged Century– R. Conquest
Misc. Death Ship- B. Traven
Some brilliant suggestions here already (as I did not have enough books to catch up on), here are some books, many with Anglosphere themes, some just because they are rattling good yarns:
Orwell: The complete essays.
Sherlock Holmes stories by Conan Doyle.
Expanded Universe, by Robert A. Heinlein (a collection of short SF stories). Also, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
The Constitution of Liberty, by FA Hayek.
Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman.
Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand.
Memoirs, by W.S. Churchill.
The Happy Return, by CS Forester
The Ship, by CS Forester
Casino Royale, From Russia With Love, by Ian Fleming. Can also recommend Andrew Lycett’s biography of Fleming.
PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Blandlings novels
Scoop, by E.Waugh, and Vile Bodies.
The Right Stuff, and a Man in Full, by Tom Wolfe
The Toilers of the Sea, 93, and the Laughing Man, by V.Hugo
The Count of Monte Cristo, by A. Dumas
Fighter, by Len Deighton (non-fiction account of the Battle of Britain).
The History of the Second World War, by John Keegan.
Peel, by Norman Gash (biography of Sir Robert Peel).
Eminent Churchillians, by Andrew Roberts.
This post elicited 40 comments and many, many suggestions from our readers of favorite military history books. It is worth revisiting and scrolling through.
I have a few additions:
Eric Bergerud: Fire in the Sky, The air war in the South Pacific – for great descriptions of the planes and tactics there.
Eric Bergerud: Touched with Fire, the land war in the South Pacific – gives you a sense of the unbelivable conditions there.
Samuel Morrison – History of US Naval Operations in World War 2 – this 15 volume set is very easy reading with lots of maps. Gives great detail of the famous battles, as well as things not so famous like the landings of operation Torch and the submarine war in the Atlantic
Beans, Bullets and Black Oil by W.R. Carter – the definitive book about supply by the US Pacific forces in WW2.
Mike Magnuson – Lummox, The evolution of a man – funny novel about the trials of a man living in the Midwest – partially a true story.
Ted Roosevelt – The Naval War of 1812 – wonderful descriptions of the ships, tactics, and strategy used on the water in this understudied war.
Antony Beevor – Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege – Great descriptive history of one of the most awful battles of history.
George Orwell – Homage to Catalonia – Orewell actually fought against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War and this account tells the tale.
William Shirer – Berlin Diary: The journal of a foreign correspondent 1934-1941 – Shirer was a journalist stationed in Berlin during this time and has some amazing first person accounts about that scary time.
There are more, of course, but these stick out off the top of my head.
These are great. Thanks to all, and please keep them coming. I am adding almost every one of these recommendations to the list.
I’d like to see Locke’s Two Treatises on Government, Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Sir Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte D’Arthur (we can’t leave out the Arthurian legends!), John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Lycidas, Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, Shakespeare’s Complete Works, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Beowulf, Jack London’s The Call of the Wild and White Fang, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. And maybe a collection of Ray Bradbury’s short stories.
I didn’t see anything by Burke above, but I’m not sure what I’d include.
You may want to consider a poetry section, though it had more currency in the olden days than now. I’d consider Frost, Whitman, Blake, Donne, Tennyson, Byron, along with Milton and Shakespeare as mentioned above.
Of course, All of the Books James McCormick has reviewed should be on the list as well.
Well you said you wanted more, so here goes:
Goodbye Darkness by Wm Manchester; Fable of the Bees by B. Mandeville (oldie but goodie); Jungle Lore, Temple Tiger, Maneaters of Kumaon (and others) by Jim Corbett (Corbett is an addicting writer. Once you’ve read one of his books you just might want to read them all)
Murder of My Aunt by R. Hull (You didn’t ask for mysteries but this one is a classic in the field and can fit into the Anglospheria category); To Rule the Waves by A. Herman (history of Britsh Navy); The Collapse of British Power by C. Barnett; The Good Shepherd by C.S. Forester (re: convoy escort in the Atlantic in WW2). John Keegan (almost anything). Barney’s Version by Mordecai Richler (I’m not a big fan of Richler, but on this one he outdid himself –it’s classic non-pc fiction)
Would also put in a plug for the ISI College Guide (Choosing the Right College) It has things that you won’t find in most college guides.
Oops, right after I pushed the button I remembered another one: In Deadly Combat by (Bidermann(?)) (Memoir of WW2 on the Eastern Front).
That in turn somehow reminded me of the Charlie Chaplin silent movies like The Kid, and The Gold Rush. You might also want to think about adding them to your list. Also in the movie dept. how about The Best Years of Our Lives.
(the film dissapoin ting)
Story of O
Cover of a French edition of Histoire d’O featuring Corinne Clery
Enlarge
Cover of a French edition of Histoire d’O featuring Corinne Clery
One version of the Roissy triskelion ring
Enlarge
One version of the Roissy triskelion ring
Histoire d’O (English title: Story of O ) is an erotic novel about sadomasochism by French author Anne Desclos (1907-1998) under the pen name Pauline Réage. Desclos only revealed her identity as the author forty years after publication and shortly before her death. Desclos said that she had written the novel as a series of love letters to her lover Jean Paulhan who admired the work of the Marquis de Sade. Desclos also wrote under the name of Dominique Aury.
Published 1954 in French, by Jean-Jacques Pauvert, editeur, it is a story of female submission about a beautiful Parisian fashion photographer who is blindfolded, chained, whipped, branded, pierced, made to wear a mask, and taught to be “constantly available” for oral, vaginal, and/or anal intercourse. In February 1955, it won the French literature prize Prix des Deux Magots, although this did not prevent the French authorities bringing obscenity charges against the publisher. The charges were rejected by the courts, but a publicity ban was imposed for a number of years.
The first English edition was published by Grove Press, Inc. in 1965. Eliot Fremont-Smith (of the New York Times) called its publishing “a significant event.”
A sequel, was published 1969 in French, again with Jean-Jacques Pauvert, editeur, Retour àRoissy (Return to Roissy, but often translated as Return to the Chateau, Continuing the Story of O), was published again by Grove Press, Inc., in 1971.
Historical novels: “The Year of the French,” which despite its name is about Ireland and an attempted rebellion against the British circa 1798 (supported by a detachment of French troops, whence the name.) Ralph Peters called this “the finest historical novel written in English, at least in the twentieth century.”
William Goetzmann:
Exploration and Empire, The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the West, which I haven’t read since I took his course in my youth. However, his emphasis upon the different ways people looked at the land emphasizes our shared heritage.
Army Exploration of the West – 1803-1863 I haven’t read but would appear to be pertinent.
When the Eagle Screamed: the Romantic Horizon in American Expansionism, 1800-1860. That I did read last fall. Given that his dedication quotes Kipling and his conclusion Wordsworth, it concerns itself with the Anglosphere. He’s not, of course, the most politically correct of Pulitzer winners. He ends his introduction:
Here are his last paragraphs:
Another one I haven’t read (or at least gotten very far in) takes its title from Emerson: New Lands, New Men: America and the Second Great Age of Discovery.
He loves the West, the world of John Ford (whose films should probably be included if you are having an American west section). But he also emphasized another perspective, writing a biography of Alexander von Humboldt and noting the influence of German philosophy in his The American Hegelians: An Intellectual Episode in the History of Western America.
A book that seems to touch on Anglosphere interests: Autobiography of an English Soldier in the U.S. Army.
Ginny, that sounds cool. I have never heard of this guy.
Totally irrelevant: I think he and Tom Wolfe were either office mates or roommates in college. Both take that American Studies approach which can be wonderful – looking at culture in a way that includes literature and art (he’s got another book on Western art and that’s what he’s been doing work on in the last few years). Of course, most of those departments have disintegrated with post-modernism and post-colonialism, etc. If I’d taken his course at the beginning rather than the end of my grad coursework, I’d have majored in Am Stud. But it was also an incredibly eccentric dept.
(Looking at the Pulitzer list – he got his in 67 – shows some real changes in what history scholars venerate. Still it remains a marker of a pretty good book.)
BTW, did anyone remember to mention _Five Years A Dragoon_ yet?
What about the folktales of J. Frank Dobie?
Excellent! More, please.
Historical novels: Herman Wouk’s “The Caine Mutiny,” which also became a film. I saw a leftie somewhere blaming “Caine” for the bith of neo-conservatism!
Churchill’s four-volume “History of the English Speaking Peoples” and his six-volume “The Second World War”. Also, some books on the Anglosphere’s possible futures: Neal Stephenson’s “The Diamond Age” and Ray Kurzweil’s “The Age of Spiritual Machines” (Kurzweil’s “The Singularity Is Near” is a good but considerably longer alternative).
Movies: Lawrence of Arabia, Spartacus, Beckett
Jonathan,
You didn’t include television, but I figure, what the hey. Lex doesn’t have to watch.
A)Series: Magnum, P.I., with Tom Selleck. This series emphasizes the brotherhood of men in the three Viet vets loyalty, welded in battle; it demonstrates the similar vision of the British and the Americans, as Higgins joins them. Higgins’ role as a quite British mentor reinforces the relationship we have as the “younger” nation. The series also demonstrates that an unusually high level of patriotism delineates the differences between the British and Americans, but also that strong feelings increase rather than decrease the understanding of and therefore sympathy for the other.
Made for t.v. movie: Tom Selleck again. Ike: Countdown to D-Day. The comments on both Netflix and Amazon emphasize the focus on leadership, on the difficulties of leading in what was both battle and politics, as the French, English & Americans prepare for D-Day. Selleck plays a restrained & tense Eisenhower; his interview with Churchill is, again, a meeting of the two cultures. The film was shot in New Zealand – so we have Anglosphere culture in that way, too. This is not a war movie but a psychological, character-driven work; it clearly tried to be as accurate and historical as it could within the constraints of such a film.
Band of Brothers is a series that I’ve never seen, but I’ve heard many quite different veterans praise.
The movie KHARTOUM about General Gordon’s heroic stand against the Mahdi. It’s accurate in its broad sweep, if not its details. Charleston Heston plays Gordon, while Laurence Oliver plays the Mahdi. Ralph Richardson plays Gladstone. The move is quite relevant for today, for only the “fanatical” Gordon realized the threat the Mahdi posed, while Gladstone and the other Liberals of the day wanted to stick their heads in the sand.
BTW, I know its Charlton, not Charleston. Typing too fast.
I’m somewhat aghast that some of my favorite authors are not mentioned: Austen and Dickens. Okay, so everybody should know about Austen after all of her books have been adapted to movie or miniseries form (some multiple times), but there are many books by Dickens that don’t get as much attention as they should.
Trying to go with the themes I see above, I will limit my recommendations to two (I think people should read all his (finished) novels, but people may think that a bit much): Hard Times and Martin Chuzzlewit. Hard Times is Dickens’ most modern novel and extremely short. I think some who think they know Dickens may be a little surprised by the book.
Martin Chuzzlewit is full of comic genius, though it ultimately is extremely dark (there was an excellent adaptation for Masterpiece Theater, but there’s a crucial bit missing). However, to get a good idea of British attitudes on America in the 1840s/1850s, one should read the bit of youn Martin’s excursion into America. There’s a huge backstory from Dickens’ own life, and underlying this is a huge international copyright dispute (i.e., international copyright did not exist at the time) – one should read the bit he added as preface after he visited the U.S. a second time after the Civil War.
Anyway, Hard Times and Martin Chuzzlewit. Plenty to chew on in both. Hard Times for the lazy, and Martin Chuzzlewit for the avid reader. ;)
Movies: Breaker Morant, Paths of Glory, Sergeant York, Master and Commander, Horatio Hornblower w/Gregory Peck, Brideshead Revisited, 1984, Anne of the Thousand Days, The Longest Day, The Desert Rats, A Bridge Too Far, Battle of Britain, David Copperfield, The Devil’s Disciple, Richard III, Pride and Prejudice (Olivier), Fire Over England, That Hamilton Woman, Khartoum, Major Barbara, Sink the Bismarck!, A Yank in the RAF, Oliver Twist (David Lean), A Passage to India, Pygmalion, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Barry Lyndon, Tom Jones, Hope and Glory, The Dam Busters, A Christmas Carol (Alastair Sim), The Ruling Class, The Lion in Winter, Oh! What A Lovely War.
The Elements of Justice by David Schmidtz, Director of the Program of Philosophy of Freedom at the University of Arizona, is a readable 2006 book that counters the flaws of Rawls and offers a rational and spacious way to think of how humans live together. I think it’s going to be very important. Keys are the value of avoiding a rigid Theory of Everything, and the necessary expectations citizens have of themselves (duty) and others (rights). I think the readers here who have not yet discovered it would enjoy it and find it irreplaceable for its purpose.
Dickens: Bleak House. A wonderful book. Great depictions of lawyers: Malicious, unfair, overstated, but containing permanent elements of truth.
Just started the Shattered Sword by Parshal and Tully (re: Battle of Midway) It’s been favorably reviewed. (So I far I’ve gotten only about 30 pages into it.)
Re: WWI, would add the Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 by A. Horne.
In the miscellaneous column would add all of the Dark and Stormy Night series edited by Scott Rice. (They’re the “best?” of the entries in the worst first sentence writing contest.)
Arthur Koestler, “Darkness at Noon,” a philosophical novel about totalitarianism.
What follows is the books on the bookshelves next to the desk where my computer is (law, ecomomics, Russian history, German history, etc.), basically the ones I can see from where I am sitting. These are not all the books on the shelf, just those which I have already read, either completely or in sufficient part to know it is good, and which are good enough to recommend.
Bellomo, The Common Legal Past of Europe, 1000-1800
Rene David, Major Legal Systems in the World Today
Patrick Devlin, The Enforcement of Morals
Patrick Devlin, The Judge,
Patrick Devlin, Trial by Jury
Richard Ducann, The Art of the Advocate
Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law
S.E. Forman, Esentials in Civil Government (1904)
Stephen P. Halbrook, That Every Man be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutinal Right
Learned Hand, The Spirit of Liberty
Ron Harris, Industrializing English Law: Entrepreneurship and Business Organization, 1720-1844
Arthur R. Hogue, Origins of the Common Law
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Collected Legal Papers
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., The Common Law
John W. Johnson, American Legal Culture, 1908-1940
Stanley I. Kutler, Privilege and Creative Destruction: The Charles River Bridge Case
F.W. Maitland, The Constitutional History of England
F.W. Maitland, Selected Essays
F.W. Maitland, Historical Essays
F.W. Maitland, Cecil Fifoot, ed., The Letters of Frederic William Maitland
James Oldham, Engish Common Law in the Age of Mansfield
Roscoe Pound, The Formative Era of American Law
Reuven Brenner, The Force of Finance
Amy Chua, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability
Ronald H. Coase, The Firm, the Market and the Law
Hernando de Soto, The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World
Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
Milton & Rose Friedman, Free to Choose
Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man
Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity
Francis Fukuyama, State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century
Francis Fukuyama, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power and the Neoconservative Legacy
Joel Garreau, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing our Minds, Our Bodies — And What it Means to be Human
Ernest Gellner, Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and Its Rivals
Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
Friedrich A. Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order
Friedrich A. Hayek, Capitalism and the Historians
Friedrich A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit
Joel Kotkin, Tribes: How Race, Religion and Identity Determine Success in the New Global Economy
Alan Macfarlane, The Savage Wars of Peace: England, Japan and the Malthusian Trap
Alan Macfarlane, The Riddle of the Modern World: Of Liberty, Wealth and Equality
Alan Macfarlane, The Making of the Modern World: Visions From East and West
Alan Macfarlane, Glass: A World History
Alan Macfarlane, Letters to Lily: On How the World Works
Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy
Ludwig von Mises, Socialism
Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action
Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations
Madsen Pirie, Dismantling the State: The Theory and Practice of Privatization
Gustav Schmoller, The Mercantile System and its Historical Significance
Douglass C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance
Joseph Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis
Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
Thomas Sowell, Knowledge and Decisions
Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions
Thomas Sowell, Education: Assumptions Versus History
Thomas Sowell, The Economics and Politics of Race
Thomas Sowell, Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality?
Thomas Sowell, Compassion v. Guilt and Other Essays
Thomas Sowell, Ethnic America: A History
Thomas Sowell, Marxism: Philosophy and Economics
Thomas Sowell, Preferential Policies: An International Perspective
Thomas Sowell, Classical Economics Reconsidered
Thomas Sowell, Race and Culture
Thomas Sowell, Black Rednecks and White Liberals
George J. Stigler, The Economist as Preacher and Other Essays
George J. Stigler, The Orgnanization of Industry
George J. Stigler, The Citizen and the State: Essays on Regulation
George J. Stigler, Essays in the History of Economics
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Nicholas V. Riasanovksy, A History of Russia
Richard Hellie, Enserfment and Military Change in Muscovy
Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime
Hans Kohn, Pan-Slavism: Its History and Ideology
Leon Trotsky, The Russian Revolution
Robert Conquest, Stalin, Breaker of Nations
Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment
Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Vol. 1)
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: The Destructive Labor Camps, The Soul and Barbed Wire (Vol. 2)
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: Katorga, Exile, Stalin is no More (Vol. 3)
Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Untold Story
V.M. Molotov, Felix Chuev ed., Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics, Conversations with Felix Chuev
Milovan Djilas, Conversations With Stalin
Andrei Sakharov, Memoirs
Boris Yeltsin, Against the Grain: An Autobiography
Anatol Lieven, Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power
Eugenia Ginsberg, Journey Into the Whirlwind
Arden Bucholz, Hans Delbruck and the German Miitary Establishment
Ludwig Dehio, Germany and World Politics in the Twentieth Century
Gordon A. Craig, From Bismarck to Adenauer, Aspects of German Statecraft
Gordon A. Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army
Dennis Showalter, Railroads and Rifles: Soldiers, Technology and the Unification of Germany
Holger Herwig, The Politics of Frustration: The United States in German Naval Planning, 1889-1941
Fritz Fischer, Germany’s Aims in the First World War
Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair:: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology
Fritz Stern, Einstein’s German World
Fritz Stern, Dreams and Delusions: National Socialism in the Drama of the German Past
Marion Countess Donhoff, Before the Storm: Memories of My Youth in Old Prussia
Marie Vassiltchikov, Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945
Edward Banfield, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society
W.J.F. Jenner, The Tyranny of History: The Roots of China’s Crisis
C.V. Wedgewood, William the Silent
D.K. Palit, War in High Himalaya
Stanley Jaki, The Road to Science and the Ways to God
Steven Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President, 1952-1969
A critical Anglosphere book: Brian M. Downing, The Military Revolution and Political Change
I don’t know how this got left off.
Swap by Sam Moffie would make a terrific movie.
==PROPOSAL FOR AN ELECTION EXPERIMENT==
This may not be the proper forum for this, but I will state my ‘idea’/’proposal’ anyway, and see if anyone is intrigued by my reasoning.
[Moved to the forum – admin.]
Because they hate: A survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America by Brigitte Gabriel
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage by Stephanie Coontz
On the lighter side for movies Harvey with James Stewart is always a good classic.
Thanks, Anonymous.