The Top Books for Understanding the Left
David Horowitz’s recent appearance on Glenn Beck and the subsequent resignation of former Green Jobs Czar Van Jones has brought a renewed interest in understanding the nature of the political Left.
I got an email yesterday from Robert, one of our readers:
I am an avid reader and have followed David Horowitz for some time. Just finishing Liberal Fascism, I would like input into what you might consider to be the best 10-12 books an individual could read to best understand the progressive movement. Could you forward some recommendations?
I promised Robert a post in which I made my recommendations.
Before leaping into the books a great place to start is with Discover The Networks, the Freedom Center’s online encyclopedia of the Left. Go there and browse around a bit. (You’ll note that here at NewsReal we link to DTN extensively — something we encourage other bloggers to do.)
As far as books go first, you’ll want to start out with David Horowitz’s work. He is the country’s definitive analyst of the Left. Here are the key books he’s written that you’ll want to read in order to understand the Left. (These are in order of importance, by the way):
Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey by David Horowitz — His memoir.
The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America’s Future by David Horowitz — The intellectual companion piece to Radical Son in which he lays out his political philosophy.
Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties by Peter Collier and David Horowitz — A collection of journalism and essays about the New Left.
Uncivil Wars: The Controversy Over Reparations For Slavery by David Horowitz — One part narrative of Horowitz’s reparations campaign, one part exciting description of the American Idea.
Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey by David Horowitz, edited and with an introduction by Jamie Glazov — A large collection of Horowitz’s work touching on many subjects.
Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left by David Horowitz — This book’s “The Mind of the Left” section is VERY IMPORTANT for this subject.
Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes by David Horowitz — This collection of essays has many essential pieces.
For some important books by other authors you need to read:
United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror by Jamie Glazov
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer
A Conservative History of the American Left by Dan Flynn
Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left by Ronald Radosh
It’s important, though, to not just read books about the Left. You need to read books and publications by leftists themselves.
Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky This was my favorite Noam Chomsky book back when I was a leftist. It’s one of his more accessible texts, though if you want to get a decent idea for what the Left’s preeminent guru is about you can also watch the documentary Manufacturing Consent – Noam Chomsky and the Media. And then you might appreciate Collier and Horowitz’s book-length rebuttal to Chomsky’s work, The Anti-Chomsky Reader.
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. This popular “history” of our country will show you how the Left views America: a greedy, genocidal, racist, exploitative “empire.”
What Liberal Media?: The Truth about Bias and the News by Eric Alterman. Alterman, a media critic for The Nation, isn’t quite as far out there as Chomsky and Zinn (he’s criticized Chomsky a fair amount.) This was also an important book for me back in my leftist days.
So does anyone else have any recommendations?
The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy by Thomas Sowell is another great one.
I am reading Radical Son, for the fourth time, and am just about to enter the chapter on Betty. Once again I find myself wondering if I can endure the pain of David’s words about her murder………..Bastards!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What about The Shadow Party?-one of the best books to understand all the roots of whats happening now
The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945
Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman’s Crusade
Plagues of the Mind
In Defense of Elitism
The Intellectuals by Paul Johnson
Conservatism in America since 1930
Before the Storm
Stupid Black Men by Larry Elder
America’s 30Years War by Balint Vazsonyi……first person account of a Hungarian political refugee.
Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg is the most important look at the left in the last few years because it includes fascism in the mix. Flynn traces Progressivism through Communism to modern leftism, but leaves fascism out, which seems like a big hole once you’ve read Goldberg.
Vision of the Annointed by Thomas Sowell explains the mindset of people who want to run your lives or tell you how you ought to think, and like everything by Sowell, it’s intellectually stimulating, accessible to most readers and definitive.
Witness by Whitaker Chambers is THE book that started a movement and defined modern conservative approaches to the Left. Very influential on William F. Buckley– and about everyone else.
The Road to Serfdom by Von Hayek. The all time classic.
Sowells- The Vision of the Anointed -
Horowitz – Radical Son – The best
Whttacker Chambers – Witness
Ronald Radosh – Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left
All were radicals and give special insight because they can get into the mind of the radicals because at one point they were radicals as well.
Alfred Jay Nock — Our Enemy the State
Friedrich Hayek — The Road to Serfdom
Franz Oppenheimer — The State
The Opium of the Intellectuals, by Raymond Aron, which is being discussed here now.
There are two video’s on youtube by ex-kgb agent Yuri Bezmenov where he outines the tactics of subverting a country.We are well down that road.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj0Id3BLFco&feature=PlayList&p=85AB7AADA53CFB5B&index=0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_xdBnFPqOI&feature=PlayList&p=4CDAB99FAB5980BA&index=0&playnext=1
He wrote two small books detailing how the process of suversion works.
He symptoms that he outlines are present in America.
For the New Intellectual by Ayn Rand
The definitive takedown of statists of all varieties, and the philosophy that animates them.
Barry Goldwater – “The Conscience of a Conservative”
Excellent and relavant to the power grab by the neo-Communist to promote their agenda…
Also an easy read for those of us that young teens.
Julie
Anecdote: 2 years ago I had a Jamaican woman who cleaned for me (here on work Visa). I wasn’t there on her last day before returning to Jamaica, but when I returned home I noticed 2 things missing:
1. My favorite wine glasses
2. My book bag with my copy of Barry Goldwater’s – The Conscience of a Conservative & David Horowitz’s – Radical Son
Smart maid – LOL
Both Mr. Forsmark and Personal Trainer New Orleans make valuable suggestions with which I concur, particularly Chambers and Sowell. Hayek is first rate as well. M, Stanton Evans book on McCarthy is well researched.
1984 and Animal Farm are still very instructive and pack almost as emotional a punch as Witness.
Books that competently explain the psychological mechanisms that explain how and why some people join cults (religious or otherwise) would also be good I think.
Joshua Muravchik, History of Socialism
Maximillian Robespierre, speech of February 4, 1794 justifying terrorism (the Reign of Terror). The “left” originates from the semi-circular seating in the National Assembly of the French Revolution, the Jacobins, led by Robespierre, sat on the far left and the monarchists and clericals on the far right. Revolution became fashionable in the 19th century, and revolutionaries thought of themselves as in the Jacobin tradition. (Vladimir Lenin established the “permanent Reign of Terror” in order to prevent “Thermidor,” the month (June-July renamed by the Jacobins) when Robespierre was overthrown.)
Try also Sidney Hook, OUT OF STEP, and the works of George Orwell.
What great reading ideas! Back in the day when I was all caught up in, first, the Conserative Movement, then the Libertarian Movement, I had quite a library of books on these subjects. And my only intro to Economics was actually Political Economic Theory by the likes of Murray Rothbard (a real brain & libertarian ideologue) and Ludwig von Mises. My libertarian guru was the late Robert LeFevre (“This Bread Is Mine,” which is probably way out of print by now). But I found it painful and a huge waste of time to read all the crap from the Left; I was content with tracts of blather found in “peoples’ bookstores” (in Canada – few were allowed to function in the USA), and other pubs from the USSR and China (translated into English, of course). As I said, they were all such crap, too painful and BORING to read! But I would imagine that modern-day thinkers & writers, such as Horowitz, would be wonderful reading precisely because they WERE once in the heart of the U.S. Leftist-Progressive-Radical-Socialist Movement. In fact, I intend to read David’s “Radical Son” very soon.
OMG! After all the recent attention to Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” as virtualy mother’s milk for our young Community-Organizer-in-Chief, how could anyone have omitted that “Bible for Progressives” from such a list of core writings that would help one gain insight into the mind (or lack of same) of the Left?