Summer is upon us, and now is the perfect time to catch up on some reading! In a season with so many patriotic holidays, summer is also the perfect time to dive into a book on politics, the principles of liberty or economic freedom. If you need some ideas, here are a few suggestions from Board of Regents member Dr. Lee Edwards and our President Roger Ream:
Regent Lee Edwards:
Advise and Consent by Allen Drury. After 50 years, Advise and Consent by Pulitzer Prize winning author Allen Drury remains one of the best novels about Washington politics ever written. It is filled with memorable characters, including a wily southern Senator and a smooth diplomat who covers up his early flirtation with communism. Progressives and conservatives battle fiercely over the nomination of a Secretary of State. There are political manipulations that would make Machiavelli blush. The heroes and villains of Advise and Consent live and breathe and bleed, illuminating, in Drury’s words, “the human strengths and weaknesses of democratic governance.” To borrow from our French friends, the more things change the more they remain the same.
President Roger Ream:
Financing Failure: A Century of Bailouts by Vern McKinley. McKinley is a 1984 alumnus of The Fund’s Engalitcheff Institute on Comparative Political and Economic Systems (ICPES). During his time at ICPES, he interned with the Senate Republican Policy Committee. He has since remained actively involved with TFAS and our alumni network. Financing Failure exposes the truth behind the recent financial institution bailouts of 2008, analyzes the history of financial crises, and illustrates the difficulty in obtaining information from an administration that billed itself “the most transparent and ethical administration in history.”
Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America by Mark Levin. Levin, a 1976 alumnus of The Fund’s Engalitcheff Institute on Comparative Political and Economic Systems, is the host of The Mark Levin Show, a popular talk radio program. He is also President of Landmark Legal Foundation, one of the nation’s most prominent conservative legal groups. In Ameritopia, Levin shows that the American people must choose between the false promise of utopia and the more challenging, but ultimately more rewarding principle of liberty. Levin’s book is both intellectually satisfying and a necessary wakeup call in this era of eroding personal liberty.