What is a good book that explores the today’s conservative thught and compares it to liberal thought that is written from a conservative prospective? Is Robert Bork’s Slouching Towards Gomorrah really as wacky as people say?
Parliament of Whores by P.J. O’Rourke
Two by Dinesh D’Souza:
[ul]
[li]Letters to a Young Conservative[/li][li]What’s So Great About America[/li][/ul]
Moving This Thread To Cafe Society, by Czarcasm.
There are two good books, written by conservatives, that trace the modern conservative movement: The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945 by George Nash and The Conservative Revolution by Lee Edwards. Both are good, readable books.
However, if you’re looking for a book that talks about conservatism today and contrasts it to liberalism, then you’ll need to be more precise about what you mean by conservatism. Do you mean neoconservatism (then you may want to check out Irving Kristol’s Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea or if you want a fresher perspective, anything by David Frum should do)? Or do you mean the Religious Right? Ralph Reed has written a couple of books on that. If you mean the old isolationist/anti-immigrant right, then check out Pat Buchanan’s recent book. If you’re looking for a libertarian perspective, then Libertarianism: A Primer by David Boaz is good. The anti-modernist right is well represented by Bork’s Slouching Towards Gommorah, although he does go off the deep end, IMHO. There is no book that really encapsulates what it means to be “conservative” today, because there is no consensus what “conservative” means.