# Recommend a polemical book please! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 21, 2003, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-polemical-book-please/170100 "2003-04-21T19:13:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Slacker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-polemical-book-please/170100/1 "2003-04-21T19:13:50Z")
I’ve been in the mood for the muckrake as of late, and I’ve recently blown through **Fast Food Nation** , **Bias** , and **The Jungle**. I enjoyed Fast Food Nation the most, though all were quite good. I’d be up for a satire as well. I’ve most recently read the blisteringly disappointing **Oh, the Things I Know** by Al Franken (I adored **Why Not Me** , so this was a big letdown). Any recommendations along this line would be appreciated too. I’ve crawled trough [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com)’s “people who bought this book also bought” trees, but didn’t see anything too interesting. I don’t know if I’d make it though anything by **Michael Moore** after reading a rabid anti-Bush excerpt of **Stupid White Men** online. Plus, as a Doper, I’m interested in fighting ignorance, not helping Moore propogate it (but that’s a conversation for another thread). 😃 I’ve also read about **Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America** by Barbara Ehrenreich, but I’m not terribly interested in that one. If anyone has any suggestions I’d greatly appreciate it. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-polemical-book-please/170100/2 "2003-04-21T19:34:29Z")
- Elmer Gantry, \* Sinclair Lewis. It may have been originally published in the twenties, but it provides insight into the fundamentalist mentality which still apply today. - Republican Party Reptile \* by P.J. O’Rourke of \* National Lampoon \* fame. Somewhat dated, but feisty and funny as hell. If you really want to give your liberal friends an aneurism, let them see you toting around a copy of \* The Camp of the Saints, \* by Jean Respail, which can possibly be described as a cynical, far-right view of illegal immigration and anti-white racism among Western intellectuals. ---
**Author:** ![refusal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@refusal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/refusal)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-polemical-book-please/170100/3 "2003-04-21T21:00:56Z")
**No One Left To Lie To** by Christopher Hitchens about the Clinton family is a superb example of polemic. It might be a little past its peak time of relevance, but is highly entertaining nonetheless. Hitchens’ other work, such as his attack on Mother Theresa, are also meant to be good fun. ---
**Author:** ![InTransit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47774/32.png) [@InTransit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InTransit)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-polemical-book-please/170100/4 "2003-04-21T23:53:34Z")
**Ashes to Ashes** by Richard Kluger. It won the Pulitzer for non-fiction a couple of years back. The subtitle is “America’s Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris” and pretty much says it all. Despite the title, it’s fairly balanced and exhaustively researched. I was very disappointed by **Nickel & Dimed** , but I won’t go into that here. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2003, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-polemical-book-please/170100/5 "2003-04-22T00:15:30Z")
I liked Kluger’s book a lot. I’ve also read most of the books in your OP, and liked them all. I loved Sinclair’s _The Jungle_ - one of the few works that was the impetus behind a major piece of federal legislation. Maybe, in that vein, you might take a look at Rachel Carson’s _Silent Spring_. Of course, given the political nature of the term’s usage, one person’s “polemic” will be another’s “carefully researched study.” While the term “polemic” has taken on a pejorative sense in much modern usage, implying a lack of research or evidence, the OED defines it thus: > [@](#): > > A controversial argument or discussion; argumentation against some opinion, doctrine, etc.; aggressive controversy; in pl. the practice of this, esp. as a method of conducting theological controversy: opposed to irenics. It seems to me that it’s certainly possible for a carefully-researched and well-documented book to qualify as a polemic. And it’s not only those on the left who write polemics. I’m currently reading a book called _Why the Left Hates America_, by Daniel Flynn. I can’t pretend to like the book, or to agree with much of what it says, but it certainly qualifies as a polemic. If you want to descend beyond “polemic” to the category of “malevolent screed,” try anything by Ann Coulter. Moving back to the left again, a book i liked a lot was Jim Hightower’s _If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote, They Would Have Given Us Candidates_. Many of Noam Chomsky’s political works probably qualify. Eric Alterman’s recent book _What Liberal Media_ also fits the bill. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2003, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-polemical-book-please/170100/6 "2003-04-22T12:50:43Z")
**The Female Man** by Joanna Russ. A very well-done feminist polemic. ---
**Author:** ![Drastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Drastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drastic)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2003, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-polemical-book-please/170100/7 "2003-04-22T14:33:17Z")
**Desert Solitaire** by Edward Abbey; a collection of funny bits, plus some downright mystically worshipful writings of the stark beauty of the American southwest desert, and some snarlingly polemical diatribes against the increasing accessability and development of the national parks in that area that was really starting to pick up speed while he watched. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2003, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-polemical-book-please/170100/8 "2003-04-22T14:38:28Z")
\*\* Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes\*\* By David Horowitz. \*\* Parliament of Whores\*\* by PJ O’Rourke. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2003, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-polemical-book-please/170100/9 "2003-04-22T14:41:33Z")
WITH MALICE TOWARDS ALL- Florence King ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-polemical-book-please/170100/10 "2003-04-22T15:51:21Z")
Second _The Female Man._ And apropros of another thread in this forum, _I Put a Spell on You: The Autobiography of Nina Simone_ gets pretty strident; not of course without reason. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2003, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-polemical-book-please/170100/11 "2003-04-22T16:52:31Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by puddleglum \* > \*\*\*\* Parliament of Whores_\* by PJ O’Rourke. \*\* Yes, excellent book, written back when P.J. O’Rourke was still funny. I almost split my sides reading this, and it’s definitely a polemical work.