Books by Friends

Bruce Bartlett, The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward

As a domestic policy advisor to Ronald Reagan, Bruce Bartlett was one of the originators of Reaganomics, the supply-side economic theory that conservatives have clung to for decades. In The New American Economy, Bartlett goes back to the economic roots that made Impostor a bestseller and abandons the conservative dogma in favor of a policy strongly based on what’s worked in the past. Marshalling compelling history and economics, he explains how economic theories that may be perfectly valid at one moment in time under one set of circumstances tend to lose validity over time because they are misapplied under different circumstances. Bartlett makes a compelling, historically-based case for large tax increases, once anathema to him and his economic allies. In The New American Economy, Bartlett seeks to clarify a compelling and way forward for the American economy.

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Richard Brookhiser, Right Time, Right Place

Richard Brookhiser wrote his first cover story for the renowned conservative magazine National Review in 1969 when he was fourteen, and became the magazine’s youngest senior editor at age twenty-three. William F. Buckley, Jr. was Brookhiser’s mentor, hero and admirer; within a year of Brookhiser’s arrival at the magazine Buckley tapped him as his successor as editor-in-chief. But almost as dramatically and without warning, the relationship veered – one day, Brookhiser returned to his desk to find a letter from Buckley unceremoniously informing him, “You will no longer be my successor.” Witty and poignant, Right Time, Right Place tells the story of a young man and a political movement coming of age — and of the man who inspired them both.

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Frank J. Colucci, Justice Kennedy’s Jurisprudence

To understand today’s Supreme Court, it is essential to understand the judicial philosophy of its swing vote. For twenty years, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy has voted with the majority more than any of his colleagues. He has provided the deciding vote in cases involving politically charged issues such as affirmative action, the 2000 presidential election, religious expression, gay rights, and executive power to detain suspected terrorists. With a record reliably neither liberal nor conservative, Kennedy has generally been viewed as a capricious, indecisive moderate.

Frank Colucci, however, argues that Kennedy indeed displays a coherent approach to constitutional interpretation. Colucci digs deep into the Justice’s record, offering a close analysis of not only Kennedy’s opinions on the Court but also his prior opinions on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, his off-the-bench speeches delivered before becoming a Justice, and his testimony at confirmation hearings. Colucci identifies Kennedy’s core belief: that judges have a duty to ensure the word liberty in the Constitution be given its full and necessary meaning.

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Michael Coren, As I See It

As I See It is Michael Coren’s newest book. A collection of essays about the world and it’s affairs.

“Fearless. Unpredictable. Funny. Never boring. There’s nobody and nothing like Michael Coren in journalism anywhere!” — David Frum

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John David Dyche, Republican Leader: A Political Biography of Senator Mitch McConnell

As GOP leader in the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell is the highest-ranking Republican in America. But surprisingly little is known about this skilled and powerful politician who commands the opposition to President Barack Obama and the Democrats. Now, fellow Kentuckian and political commentator John David Dyche offers an engrossing inside look at Senator McConnell’s unlikely rise to the top ranks of the American government — and at why he has become, in the words of the leading news organization Politico, “the lone GOP senator who can stand in the way of an unfettered liberal agenda in Washington, and a key go-to man to rehabilitate his party.”

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Lee Eisenberg, Shoptimism: Why the American Consumer Will Keep on Buying No Matter What

In this smart, engaging book, Lee Eisenberg, best-selling author of The Number: A Completely Different Way to Think about the Rest of Your Life, leads us on a provocative and entertaining tour of America’s love/hate affair with shopping, a pursuit that, even in hard times, remains a true national pastime.

Why do we shop and buy the way we do? In a work that will explain much about the American character, Eisenberg chronicles the dynamics of selling and buying from almost every angle. Neither a cheerleader for consumption nor an anti-consumerist scold, he explores with boundless curiosity the vast machinery aimed at inducing us to purchase everything from hair mousse to a little black dress.

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David Gratzer, Why Obama’s Government Takeover of Health Care Will be a Disaster

If Barack Obama has his way, the American health care system is headed for a train wreck. In this vital expose, Dr. David Gratzer reveals how a government takeover by Washington will put a massive new bureaucracy between doctors and patients, create rationing, and kill the spirit of innovation that has made American high tech medicine a world leader in the treatment of cancer and other diseases. Dr. Gratzer, a first-hand witness of the failures of Canada’s health care system, shows why socialized medicine will make America sick. Examining the realities of existing health care in this country, Dr. Gratzer reveals how basic free market reforms can revive the private system we already have, without ruining the patient / doctor relationship, stifling scientific advances, and further devastating our economy.

Hardhitting and to the point, Why Obama’s Government Takeover of Health-Care Will Be a Disaster takes us inside Obama’s high stakes gamble with our health care system and shows us why we should be afraid, very afraid, of the possible outcome.

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Justine Hardy, In the Valley of Mist: Kashmir, One Family in a Changing World

“If there is a paradise on earth, it is definitely here and only here,” said the early seventeenth-century Mughal Emperor Jehangir when describing the Kashmir Valley. This is a place that has always inspired poetry and war: the Kashmir Valley has been fought over for centuries. Tensions there exploded yet again in 1989, and since then it has been embedded in constant conflict — every facet of militant and fundamentalist extremism having already exhibited its horrible results long before September 11, 2001.

In the midst of this breathtaking beauty and heartbreaking conflict enters the novelist, journalist, filmmaker, and aid worker Justine Hardy. Having lived and worked in Kashmir for two decades, she draws the reader beyond the headlines into the world of In the Valley of Mist. A family portrait, the book describes a unique and gentle culture that has been shattered by the impact of insurgency, repression, and Islamic extremism in a place once famous for the warmth between its Hindu and Muslim residents.

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Steven F. Hayward, The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution

Reagan’s greatness is today widely acknowledged, but his legacy is still misunderstood. Democrats accept the effectiveness of his foreign policy but ignore the success of his domestic programs; Republicans cheer his victories over liberalism while ignoring his bitter battles with his own party’s establishment; historians speak of his eloquence and charisma but gloss over his brilliance in policy and clarity of vision.

From Steven F. Hayward, the critically acclaimed author of The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, comes the first complete, true story of this misunderstood, controversial, and deeply consequential presidency. Hayward pierces the myths and media narratives, masterfully documenting exactly what transpired behind the scenes during Reagan’s landmark presidency and revealing his real legacy.

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Jonathan Javitt, Capitol Reflections

This exciting new thriller follows Dr. Gwen Maulder, an FDA scientist who is hot on the trail of a conspiracy that leads her through the corridors of power and ends in death for too many innocent victims. What Gwen discovers is that people with the resources to genetically engineer food have a surprisingly clear path toward bringing these foods to market – even when the side effects of genetic engineering can be devastating.

When Gwen’s best friend dies of mysterious causes, Gwen takes up the cause to determine why it happened – even though her superiors and even her husband implores her to stay away. Her mission will put her in opposition to some very influential people, people who have every reason to prevent her from discovering their secret…and more importantly the power to stop her. As people keep dying, Gwen must go underground to find the answers, risking her life and the lives of those she loves in the process.

A state-of-the-art medical thriller written by a true insider, Capitol Reflections is at once edge-of-the-seat fiction and a stirring cautionary tale.

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Irving Kristol, Reflections of a Neoconservative: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

This important work, by Irving Kristol, editor of The Public Interest, is a political autobiography which shows the development of the neoconservative mind.

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Lee Lamothe, The Finger’s Twist

Charlie Tate and Elodie Gray make a striking couple. Charlie is shaven-headed weightlifter who has worked as a seaman, carnival huckster and hustler and now earns his keep as an unlicensed private investigator specializing in extricating clients’ money from thieves. Elodie Gray comes from money – lot’s of money. An accident when she was a teen confined her to a wheelchair, so she does the inside work-using her computer knowledge to find people who want to remain hidden.

In The Finger’s Twist, Charles and Elodie are hired to investigate a bombing attempt at the Ontario legislature, purportedly committed by an anarchist group called The Black Bloc. While the city drops into paranoia fueled by the police and the mayor, Charlie and Elodie try to keep the black sheep daughter of a prominent family from a certain prison sentence.

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Michael Ledeen, Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West

From Accomplice to Evil:

The world is simmering in the familiar rhetoric and actions of movements and regimes—from Hezbollah and al Qaeda to the Iranian Khomeinists and the Saudi Wahhabis—who swear to destroy us and others like us, and we are repeating the errors of the recent past. Like their 20th-century predecessors, they openly proclaim their intentions, and carry them out whenever and wherever they can. Like our 20th-century predecessors, we rarely take them seriously or act accordingly.

Acknowledging the existence and actions of evil enemies means accepting that we are at war, and then designing and conducting a strategy to win. Accomplice to Evil takes a comprehensive look at the errors we have made in the past when dealing with a mounting enemy force, why we’ve refused to acknowledge the implications of a rising evil, and how we can defeat the forces that threaten us today.

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Seth Lipsky, The Citizen’s Constitution: An Annotated Guide

Pocket versions of the Constitution of the United States of America abound, as do multi-volume commentaries, scholarly histories of its writing, and political posturings of various clauses. But what if you want a delightfully quick, witty, and readable reference that, in one compact volume, places the document and its clauses into context? You’re out of luck-until now. Written by Seth Lipsky, described in the Boston Globe as “a legendary figure in contemporary journalism,” The Citizen’s Constitution draws on the writings of the Founders, case law from our greatest judges, and current events in more than 300 illuminating annotations. Lipsky provides a no-nonsense, entertaining, and learned guide to the fundamental questions surrounding the document that governs how we govern our country. Every American should know the Constitution. Rarely has it glinted so brightly.

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John J. Miller, The First Assassin

Washington, D.C., 1861: A new president takes office, a nation begins to break apart—and Colonel Charles Rook must risk insubordination to stop a mysterious assassin who prowls a nervous city. He will need the help of an ally he does not even know he has: Portia, a beautiful slave who holds a vital clue, hundreds of miles away.

In The First Assassin, debut novelist John J. Miller invents a riveting plot based on extensive research. “This is a historical thriller, so it’s fiction,” says Miller. “But I tried to make the setting as authentic as possible. I’d like readers to think that even though the story is a product of my imagination, it could have happened.”

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Emmanuel Navon, A Plight Among the Nations

As the world expects the new US Administration to solve the perennial Arab-Israeli conflict by trying again and harder with a formula that has consistently failed for the past fifteen years, it might be time to wonder why the “two-state solution” keeps working in theory and failing in practice. As long as the Palestinians deny Jewish history and insist on turning Israel into a bi-national state with an Arab majority, President Obama will waste his time.

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Norman Podhoretz, Why are Jews Liberals?

From the bestselling author of World War IV, a brilliant and provocative examination of a central question in American politics and culture that is sure to generate tremendous controversy.

Norman Podhoretz says he has never in his entire life been asked any question on any subject as often as “Why are so many Jews liberals?” – or in its more specifically political form, “Why do most Jews always vote for the Democrats?” Podhoretz proposes to solve this puzzle. He first offers a fascinating account of anti-Semitism in the West to show why, for most of that time, Jews quite sensibly concluded that they had much more to fear from the right than the left. But since the Six Day War of 1967, he argues, this position has no longer made sense, and yet most Jews go on supporting the Democratic Party and the liberal agenda. Reviewing the history of Jewish political attitudes and thoroughly examining the available evidence, he then demonstrates that all the usual explanations – such as a passion for justice allegedly deriving from the prophets of the Hebrew Bible – are either inadequate or flat-out false. Finally he proposes his own answer to the great puzzle of why most Jews remain as committed to liberalism as ever.

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Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto

Food. There’s plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it. So why should anyone need to defend it?

Because most of what we’re consuming today is not food, and how we’re consuming it — in the car, in front of the TV, and increasingly alone — is not really eating. Instead of food, we’re consuming “edible foodlike substances” — no longer the products of nature but of food science. Many of them come packaged with health claims that should be our first clue they are anything but healthy. In the so-called Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and common sense by confusion. The result is what Michael Pollan calls the American paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become.

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Tara Ross & Joseph C. Smith, Jr., Under God: George Washington and the Question of Church and State

No American living in 1800 would have predicted that Thomas Jefferson’s idiosyncratic views on church and state would eclipse those of George Washington-let alone become constitutional dogma. Yet today’s Supreme Court guards no doctrine more fiercely than Jefferson’s antagonistic “wall of separation” between church and state. Washington’s sharply contrasting view, explored in this path-breaking book, returns us to a more reasonable interpretation of the First Amendment, consistent with religion’s importance to the strength of a republic. Tara Ross and Joseph C. Smith, Jr. combine a study of Washington’s thought with a copious appendix containing the full texts of his letters, speeches, and official documents on issues of church and state.

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William Safire, The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time: Wit and Wisdom from the Popular Language Column in the New York Times Magazine

For the past twenty-five years Americans have relied on Pulitzer Prize-winning wordsmith William Safire for their weekly dose of linguistic illumination in The New York Times Magazine’s column “On Language” — one of the most popular features of the magazine and a Sunday-morning staple for innumerable fans. He is the most widely read writer on the English language today.

The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time is a fascinating, learned and piquant look at the oddities and foibles that find their way into the English language. Exposing linguistic hooey and rigamarole and filled with Safire’s trademark wisdom, this book has a place on the desk or bedside table of all who share his profound love of the English language — as well as his penchant for asking “What does that mean?” Or, “Wassat?”

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Lee Smith, The Strong Horse

In a provocative, timely book, a noted journalist and expert on Arab-American affairs overturns long-held Western myths about the Arab world, and offers a doctrine to help the United States correct its assumptions concerning the region.

Wanting to know why September 11 happened, journalist Lee Smith moved to Cairo. There, he discovered that the standard explanation-a clash of East and West led to the attacks-was simply not the case. As Smith outlines in The Strong Horse, the problems of the Middle East have little to do with Israel, the United States, or the West in general. The strife exists within the Arab world itself.

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Tamler Sommers, A Very Bad Wizard: Morality Behind the Curtain

Do we have free will? What counts as justice in the Peruvian Amazon? Does evolutionary theory make ethics a sham? Is Catherine Zeta-Jones objectively hotter than Drew Barrymore?

These are just a few of the questions that philosopher Tamler Sommers attempts to answer in his interviews with ten acclaimed researchers in the burgeoning field of moral psychology. A Very Bad Wizard is essential reading for anyone curious about the origins and inner workings of our moral lives.

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Sam Tanenhaus, The Death of Conservatism

Sam Tanenhaus’s essay “Conservatism Is Dead” prompted intense discussion and debate when it was published in The New Republic in the first days of Barack Obama’s presidency. Now Tanenhaus, a leading authority on modern politics, has expanded his argument into a sweeping history of the American conservative movement. For seventy-five years, he argues, the Right has been split between two factions: consensus-driven “realists” who believe in the virtue of government and its power to adjust to changing conditions, and movement “revanchists” who distrust government and society–and often find themselves at war with America itself.

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Robert Wright, The Evolution of God

In The Evolution of God, Robert Wright takes us on a sweeping journey through history, unveiling a discovery of crucial importance to the present moment: there is a pattern in the evolution of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and a “hidden code” in their scriptures. Reading these scriptures in light of the circumstances surrounding their creation, Wright reveals the forces that have repeatedly moved the Abrahamic faiths away from belligerence and intolerance to a higher moral plane. And he shows how these forces could today let these faiths reassert their deep proclivity toward harmony and reconciliation. What’s more, his analysis raises the prospect of a second kind of reconciliation: the reconciliation of science and religion.

John J. Miller, The First Assassin

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