America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great


Ben Carson - 2011
    Ben Carson helps us learn from our past in order to chart a better course for our future. From his personal ascent from inner-city poverty to international medical and humanitarian acclaim, Carson shares experiential insights that help us understand: … what is good about America … where we have gone astray … which fundamental beliefs have guided America from her founding into preeminence among nations Written by a man who has experienced America’s best and worst firsthand, America the Beautiful is at once alarming, convicting, and inspiring. You’ll gain new perspectives on our nation’s origins, our Judeo-Christian heritage, our educational system, capitalism versus socialism, our moral fabric, healthcare, and much more. An incisive manifesto of the values that shaped America’s past and must shape her future, America the Beautiful calls us all to use our God-given talents to improve our lives, our communities, our nation, and our world.

A Mormon in the White House?: 10 Things Every Conservative Should Know About Mitt Romney


Hugh Hewitt - 2006
    In this unashamedly partisan volume, Hewitt attempts to refute the claim that no Mormon could get elected President (along with any other claim that might be made against Romney) while analyzing the former Massachusetts governor's biography and burnishing his conservative and leadership credentials. Hewitt is an agreeable, if inelegant, writer, wise enough to take detours (such as an edifying primer on Mormon history and thought) that stave off tedium. He spends far more time extolling Romney than excoriating his Republican and Democratic opponents. This is an efficient and effective exercise in political hagiography.

Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government


Glenn Beck - 2009
    FRIGHTENING. TRUE. It happens to all of us: You're minding your own business, when some idiot informs you that guns are evil, the Prius will save the planet, or the rich have to finally start paying their fair share of taxes. Just go away! you think to yourself -- but they only become more obnoxious. Your heart rate quickens. You start to sweat. You can't get away. Your only hope is...this book. Glenn Beck, author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers An Inconvenient Book and Glenn Beck's Common Sense, has stumbled upon the secret formula to winning arguments against people with big mouths but small minds: knowing the facts. And this book is full of them. The next time your Idiot Friends tell you how gun control prevents gun violence, you'll tell them all about England's handgun ban (see page 53). When they tell you that we should copy the UK's health-care system, you'll recount the horrifying facts you read on page 244. And the next time an idiot tells you that vegetable prices will skyrocket without illegal workers, you'll stop saying "no, they won't" and you'll start saying, "actually, eliminating all illegal labor will cause us to spend just $8 a year more on produce." (See page 139.) Idiots can't be identified through voting records, they can be found only by looking for people who hide behind stereotypes, embrace partisanship, and believe that bumper sticker slogans are a substitute for common sense. If you know someone who fits the bill, then Arguing with Idiots will help you silence them once and for all with the ultimate weapon: the truth.

Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness


Joshua Wolf Shenk - 2005
     Giving shape to the deep depression that pervaded Lincoln's adult life, Joshua Wolf Shenk's Lincoln's Melancholy reveals how this illness influenced both the president's character and his leadership. Lincoln forged a hard path toward mental health from the time he was a young man. Shenk draws from historical record, interviews with Lincoln scholars, and contemporary research on depression to understand the nature of his unhappiness. In the process, he discovers that the President's coping strategies—among them, a rich sense of humor and a tendency toward quiet reflection—ultimately helped him to lead the nation through its greatest turmoil.

This Noble Land


James A. Michener - 1996
    Written in Michener's trademark intimate style--so loved by readers in his bestselling memoir The World Is My Home--this book is a must for all Americans in this election year.

Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House


Valerie Plame Wilson - 2007
    A week later, conservative pundit Robert Novak revealed in his newspaper column that Ambassador Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a CIA operative. The public disclosure of that secret information spurred a federal investigation and led to the trial and conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and the Wilsons' civil suit against top officials of the Bush administration. Much has been written about the "Valerie Plame" story, but Valerie herself has been silent, until now. Some of what has been reported about her has been frighteningly accurate, serving as a pungent reminder to the Wilsons that their lives are no longer private. And some has been completely false -- distorted characterizations of Valerie and her husband and their shared integrity. Valerie Wilson retired from the CIA in January 2006, and now, not only as a citizen but as a wife and mother, the daughter of an Air Force colonel, and the sister of a U.S. marine, she sets the record straight, providing an extraordinary account of her training and experiences, and answers many questions that have been asked about her covert status, her responsibilities, and her life. As readers will see, the CIA still deems much of the detail of Valerie's story to be classified. As a service to readers, an afterword by national security reporter Laura Rozen provides a context for Valerie's own story. Fair Game is the historic and unvarnished account of the personal and international consequences of speaking truth to power.

Bannon: Trump's Rebel in the White House


Keith Koffler - 2017
    Born to working-class Democrats in Virginia, Bannon has barrelled through the Navy, Harvard, Wall Street, and Hollywood; he is fluent in esoteric philosophies and political theories; and he has diagnosed the problem with today's America---the rot that has eaten away at working Americans' hopes, opportunities, and freedoms---and developed a winning strategy for taking America back.With inside information on Bannon's current White House projects and his relationships with other figures in the Trump orbit---and with President Trump himself---Bannon: Trump's Rebel in the White House is not only a three-dimensional guide to one of the most fascinating figures of modern American history; it's also a guide to understanding the Trump administration's plans for our future.

Socialism Is Evil: The Moral Case Against Marx's Radical Dream


Justin Haskins - 2018
    But the most significant danger posed by socialism isn’t that its implementation would lead to greater poverty and fewer property rights, it’s that socialism would create numerous moral problems, including the limits it would place on individual liberty and religious freedom. In Socialism Is Evil: The Moral Case Against Marx’s Radical Dream, conservative columnist and think tank research fellow Justin Haskins examines the moral perils of Marx’s socialism and explains why if socialism were to be imposed in its fullest form, it wouldn’t just damage people’s freedoms, it would obliterate them. Haskins argues it would be dangerous to attempt to create Marx’s utopian socialist world, and even more importantly, that such an attempt would be so highly immoral that it could reasonably be called “evil.” In Socialism Is Evil, Haskins makes the moral case against socialism and also describes in detail what socialists believe, the differences between socialism and communism, why Marx’s socialism will never be completely adopted, and why even the more moderate European-style socialism, called “democratic socialism” by some, is highly immoral and anti-American. Many socialists are kind, generous people with good intentions, but sometimes, good intentions can create devastating results. Socialism Is Evil briefly tackles some of the most important moral controversies surrounding Marx’s socialism, providing supporters of individual liberty with the tools they need to stop the rise of socialism in its tracks.

Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph


Dennis Prager - 2012
    Humanity stands at a crossroads, and the only alternatives to the “American Trinity” of liberty, natural rights, and the melting-pot ideal of national unity are Islamic totalitarianism, European democratic socialism, capitalist dictatorship, or global chaos if we should fail.  America is Still the Best Hope, as this eminently sensible, profoundly inspiring volume so powerfully proves.

Speaking My Mind: Selected Speeches


Ronald Reagan - 1989
    Laying out his vision for America and the world, Speaking My Mind presents President Reagan in all forms: the public figures, the political leader, and the private man. With his personal reflections and annotations included, the most important speeches from America’s “Great Communicator” are found here.

The Senator: My Ten Years with Ted Kennedy


Richard E. Burke - 1992
    Kennedy of Massachusetts. Through ability, hard work, and dedication, Burke rose in the next four years to become one of the Senator's closest staff members. In 1977 he was made Kennedy's personal assistant; after his appointment in 1978 as administrative assistant - the youngest in the Senate - he came to know Edward M. Kennedy perhaps more intimately than anyone outside the closed circle of the Senator's family. He was often the last to see the Senator at night and the first to see him in the morning. This book is the account of what Richard Burke witnessed and experienced during his decade at the Senator's right hand. It is neither a full biography nor an examination of Kennedy's long career in government. Rather, it is the history of a young man who shared the Senator's professional and personal lives during a time marked by exhilarating public achievements and tragic secret misconduct. His story is not only the chronicle of a shattered idol, but of Richard Burke's own fall from grace, and eventual recovery. Burke does not shrink from confronting his own faults, and he agrees with the Senator: It is time for him to confront his.

Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West


Benazir Bhutto - 2008
    Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West

A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America


Ted Cruz - 2015
    The outspoken Texas Senator has a knack for getting under their skin. His quotable remarks - and even more, his principled stands on numerous national issues - have made him a political lightning rod and the most googled man in Washington. Indeed, his name has become a national punchline for liberals - he was even mentioned in a recent episode of True Blood. There is a simple reason Senator Cruz has dominated so much of the national conversation. Since his election to the Senate in 20 2 he has refused to go along with the established way of doing business in Washington. As a result, he has become a voice for millions of Americans frustrated with governmental corruption and gridlock. Telling the truth is a radical act in our nation's capital - a city dominated by empty promises, meaningless 'show votes,' and a self-protection racket designed to get politicians re-elected rather than heeding the demands of the American people. Cruz has told the truth - about Washington collusion, a corrupted political process, and the institutional barriers to actually fixing the enormous challenges we face. The book will tell Cruz's story as a Cuban immigrant's son who made it to the Ivy League, to the Supreme Court bar, and eventually the U.S. Senate. It's a deeply personal journey that begins with Cruz's father experiencing brutality in a Cuban prison and ends with Cruz's discovery that Washington has neither the courage nor the desire to preserve the freedom and opportunities that gave hope to his father, and millions like him. Pulling back the curtain on the backroom deals between Republicans, Democrats, and the lobbyists who keep them in office (instead of keeping them accountable to their constituents), the book will offer an inside look at what has gone wrong in our nation's capital. Cruz will argue that the need for change is urgent, and that the only way to bring about real change is to revitalize the Constitutional principles that made our country great. It's a book that will win Ted Cruz few friends in Washington. Then again, that isn't why he went there in the first place.

Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence


James R. Clapper - 2018
    In Facts and Fears Clapper traces his career through his rise in ranks of the military, the history of several decades of national intelligence operations, the growing threat of cyberattacks, his relationships with presidents and Congress, and the truth about Russia's role in the presidential election. He describes, in the wake of Snowden and WikiLeaks, his efforts to make intelligence more transparent and to push back against the suspicion that Americans' private lives are subject to surveillance. Clapper considers such difficult questions as, is intelligence ethical? Is it moral to use human sources to learn secrets, to intercept communications, to take pictures of closed societies from orbit? What are the limits of what we should be allowed to do? What protections should we give to the private citizens of the world, not to mention our fellow Americans? Is there a time that intelligence officers can lose credibility as unbiased reporters of hard truths by asserting themselves into policy decisions?

Truth Imagined


Eric Hoffer - 1983
    At eighteen, fate would take his remaining family, sending him on the road with three hundred dollars and into the life of a Depression Era migrant worker, but his appetite for knowledge--history, science, mankind--remained and became the basis for his insights on human nature. Filled with timeless aphorisms and entertaining stories, Truth Imagined tracks Hoffer's years on the road, which served as the breeding ground for his most fertile thoughts.