Books that espouse your political beliefs that you recommend to others

A thread was closed, so here are my recommendations for political reading, which might make for an interesting thread. Feel free to add yours from any political POV:

Some books with political themes I recommend to anyone who is interested in learning more about our political system and classical liberalism (libertarianism) are:

1. Charles Mee, The Genius of the People. A very readable history of the origin of our Constitution that I have recommended many times. It or a book like it is absolutely necessary to form any reasoned political awareness of our form of government.
2. David Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. This is the magnificent, crushing retort to the leftist "Guns, Germs and Steel" books by Jared Diamond. It is a crowning achievement of a distinguished Harvard professor that is dense in information, but readable generally. It is not a perfect work, but what is?
3. Economics on Trial, Mark Skousen. Super debunk of conventional academic economics.
4. Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals. Explains with crystal clarity the origin of the modern left and our current victimology-gynoculture.
5. Herbert Spencer, Man Versus the State, first essay, "The New Toryism." Apropos of the current political climate in the US.
6. Richard Epstein, "Takings," "Forbidden Grounds," anything else he has written for those who want actual libertarian legal theory, not really accessible for laymen though, a real, world-class intellectual and legal scholar as opposed to fakes like Chomsky.

That would be a good start for anyone wanting to understand classical liberalism and how its threads weave through our system of government (as intended, not the status quo).

 

i don't recommend political books at all. there are always lies and untruths in them.

Regardless of what party they're from.

 

I prefer to offer books on philosophy and then allowing the reader to come to their own conclusions regarding politics.

 

The Quran is fascinating reading not that I espouse the beliefs just that it is an interesting read.

 

The Black Swan, by Taleb.

 

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Hank the Cow Dog

 

No books, just posts here on PF or the internet. You're going to find that people who are saying what they think, instead of being paid to think, are sometimes the best people in the world to read.

 

Not necessarily in order:

Anthem, by Ayn Rand

Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies, by John Dickinson

The Politics of Bad Faith, by David Horowitz

 

The rights of man by Thomas Paine

 

The Postman by David Brin.

The movie isn't bad, for Hollywood, but it leaves out all the sci-fi and kind of reverses the moral of the story to some extent. The book is a real work of art.

 

Alan Dershowitz - "Blasphemy: How the Religious Right is Hijacking the Declaration of Independence"

 

Addendum: I should modern political books like See I Told You So and Rush Li,naigh is a big fat idiot and films like Vowling For Columbine. Those kinds of political works I try to avoid like mad.

otherwise I would recommend:

Thomas Pain, John Locke, the Federalist papers, and the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution.

 

The U.S Constitution with the Declaration of Independence included. A very fast read, straight forward and pretty easy for the lay person.

 

A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles - Thomas Sowell
Intellectuals and Society - Thomas Sowell

These books are the ones I've read thus far of Sowell's, and while they're not exactly taking a political stance, they explain politics at the philosophical level very well.

 

Just pointing out, Thomas Paine didn't just write Common Sense. He also wrote Agrarian Justice.

 

He also wrote the rights of man.