What Book most influenced your political beliefs?

http://boston.com | 3/12/02 | me

[seowulf]

The Anti-Federalist Papers

[CarolAnn]

"Witness" by Whitaker Chambers

A good book indeed!

For me it was probably The Bible.

[dalereed]

My parents had already made me a knowledgable hard nosed conservative Republican long before I started kintergarden but if you can find a copy, everyone should read:

The Mainspring of Human Progress

by Henry Grady Weaver

[Blade]

Atlas Shrugged

[VermiciousKnid]

Thanks, Dale...I'll take a look at it.

Regards,

[Antoninus]

Just one book?

From the Foundation of the City, by Titus Livy and Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy convinced me that a properly constituted republic was the best form of government.

The Federalist was key to understanding that our American Republic, as originally constituted, was the most ingenious and best form of republican government ever devised. De Tocqueville's Democracy in America confirmed this.

Atlas Shrugged was helpful in defining exactly what was so dangerous about socialism and liberal 'do-gooder-ism.'

But if I had to chose just one... the Holy Bible taught me why republics are able to exist at all. Without love of neighbor and a strong moral code existing among the greater portion of the people, no Free Republic will long survive. Like Thomas Jefferson, I believe that the ethical system taught by Jesus Christ is perfection itself.

[Moonmad27]

Walden by Henry David Thoreau - mainly the chapters "Economy" and "Conclusion".

[DSHambone]

For me it was Starship Troopers!!!
Heilein keeps it simple but oh so true.

[nonliberal]

"Atlas Shrugged" Bastiat's "The Law" Thomas Sowell's "The Vision of the Annointed"

[AnnaZ]

The Holy Bible

 

Special mentions to:

• Animal Farm; 1984 George Orwell
• Anthem Ayn Rand
• A Criminal History of Mankind Colin Wilson
• Immortality Milan Kundera
• The Screwtape Letters C. S. Lewis
• The Collected Works of William Shakespeare
• Behold A Pale Horse William Cooper

[Antoninus]

But regardless of that- one has to plow through her books like one does an L. Ron. Hubbard novel. She is an atrocious writer in the 1930's Stalinist mode- but what she has to say has more truth than most.

Worth repeating. Her atheist thing was a real turn-off too...

[CarolAnn]

I loved Radical Son! In this book, Mr. Horowitz wrote a statement that should be pounded into the little pea brains of every history student: "Equality and freedom are inherently in conflict. ....In talent, intelligence, and physical attributes, individuals were by nature different and unequal; consequently, the attempt to make them equal could only be achieved by restricting - ultimately eliminating - their individual freedom."

I keep that quote handy for times I find myself in a debate with a hard core leftist.

[Revolting cat!]

I would like to recommend a book which gets to the core of today's disputes A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell. And then of course there is Jean-François Revel’s How Democracies Perish. Revel, if you don't know him, was a brilliant French conservative thinker, worth checking out.

[Curly007]

Perhaps less influencing but enlightening to me, my list in no apparent order:
Vision of the Anointed - Sowell
The Mystery of Capital - Hernando de Soto
Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler *****
Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead
Native Son - David Horowitz
The Sins of the Father - Ronald Kessler
The Dark Side of Camelot - Seymore Hersh
Commies, A Journey through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left Ronald Radosh
Without Honor: Crimes of Camelot and the Impeachment of Richard Nixon - J. Zeifman
Witness
Whittaker Chambers - S. Tannenhaus
Sorry got cared away.

[Guillam]

Interesting. As an adolescent I wasn't exactly a Red but I was a little pink around the edges. 'Witness' was the book that turned the light on in my dim puberty stricken mind.

And I would have bet the farm I was the only one.

Not quite the same thing; but has anyone who's read it thought about LeCarre's 'The Little Drummer Girl' and its insight on the present Middle East situation? Fiction, but a great read.

[Governor StrangeReno]

The Prince by MACHIEVELI,How to lie with statistics,Animal Farm,1984,the 2001 patriot act.

[Commander8]

None Dare Call It Treason, Stromer. The Creature Of Jekyll Island, Griffin. Shadows of Power, Perloff. Architects of Conspiracy, Hoar. The Pink Swastika, Abrams & Lively. The Law, Bastiat. Human Action, Mises. Economics In One Lesson, Hazlitt. The Politician & Blue Book of the John Birch Society, Welch. Captains and Kings, Caldwell......and last, but never the least, the 1611 King James Bible.

[Sam Cree]

Absolutely, The Road to Serfdom and the Constitution of Liberty by Hayek.

These should be required reading in every college in the country.

[jude24]

1.) The Bible

2.) Rush Limbaugh's two books

3.) To Renew America -- Newt Gingrich. I read that as an eighth-grader.

Then, theres FR, which might as well be a book for all that I've learned here. I discovered this forum in my senior year of high school -- wow, 3 years ago. Lurked for a while.