The Founders’ Key, by Larry P. Arnn
A short book by the President of Hillsdale College, who does a good job of describing why we are mistaken to educate our students to separate the Declaration of Independence from the U. S. Constitution in their foundation of and application to the American experiment. To Arnn, the two documents are inseparable, and progressive attempts to render them of c0mpeting interests, contradict0ry, and incompatible in their purposes are misguided. Good analysis. And if you haven’t done so, I recommend that you register to watch Hillsdale’s online lecture series on the Constitution and how the progressive movement is working to undermine it.
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt
More about our political divide, but with a different slant from the one offered by E. J. Dionne. Haidt is also a man of the left, but he sees a big deficiency in the liberal perspective on the critical issues in that those of the right understand moral psychology, while those of the left typically do not. In other words, conservatives possess better recognition of the moral underpinnings of public policy than liberals, who cannot identify with and are often repelled by the three moral foundations of loyalty, authority, and sanctity. A huge concession well documented by surveys and evidence, about which I’m sure his liberal friends are none too pleased.
Sovereignty or Submission, by John Fonte
The subtitle of this book asks “Will Americans rule themselves or be ruled by others?”, and this pretty well sums up the subject of the book. Fonte issues a warning about the insidious way in which transnationalists and the forces of global governance in the United Nations and the European Union, but more importantly and troubling, among America’s leading elites, are seeking to establish a “global rule of law” to subordinate national sovereignty and our Constitution. He documents in detail how this is being accomplished in chilling fashion. We may dismiss this as utopian, but its impact is already being felt in our jurisprudence, our regulatory structure, and our conduct of national defense.
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, by Tony Judt
This is a sweeping, meticulous, 900+ page reading project, covering every aspect of European history since World War II–economic, political, and social. It can be tedious in spots, but it is very well written and I found myself thinking more deeply about many of the events and people I thought I knew and understood better than I did, and there is an enormous amount of information I had never seen.
