Comments on: Notable New Books I Read in 2012, pt. 2

By: Notable Books I Read in 2012, pt. 3 » Postmodern Conservative | A First Things Blog

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:01:13 +0000

[...] Here’s the third and final part of what I began with this 12-book-list. I knew my description of Mishra’s book would be the longest, which is why I changed order to treat it last. Second part here. [...]

By: Paul Seaton

Paul Seaton — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:49:19 +0000

Colin, welcome aboard. We’re all ignorant, just older or younger, more or less aware of the fact. Emile P-S’s book is superb. (I commissioned a review of it for PPS.). Just got the Curtright book but haven’t had the time two read it. Don’t know the Penn Warren book.

By: Colin Brown

Colin Brown — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:49:00 +0000

As I’m on the “ignorant youth” side of the spectrum, my past year has mostly been playing catch-up/discovery with “classics.” However, I might as well mention a few notables:

Democracy and Poetry – Robert Penn Warren
If I ever get the chance of focusing a class on the relationship between literature and political thought in the American tradition, I’d certainly include this. I need to read it again to give a more-informed opinion, though my initial thoughts are that Warren’s comments on the self ought to be read along with some of Walker Percy’s essays and Lost in the Cosmos, as well as perhaps Maritain’s chapter on the rise of the self in literary history in his Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry.

Catholicism and Democracy – Emile Perreau-Saussine
I found the central thesis of this work – that Vatican I and II serve as two poles between which the Church oscillates in her relation to liberal democracy – compelling, though I have not made up my mind in agreement/disagreement with it. Definitely worth a read for the political history of Church/State relations in France following the Revolution.

The One Thomas More – Travis Curtright
I began reading this when I was last at Dr. Curtright’s house, but haven’t had the time to continue in my own copy (though I do plan on making that foremost among my reading goals for 2013. While Dr. Wegemer’s A Portrait of Courage and On Statesmanship were good reads for anyone interested in an alternative to current revisionist scholarship regarding More, they were limited in their scope. I’ve high hopes for Dr. Curtright’s work for being more encompassing of More; if it was anything like Dr. Curtright’s class on More, it should be excellent.

By: Pseudoplotinus

Pseudoplotinus — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:57:32 +0000

In the spirit of Mr. Seaton’s post above, a must read is John Allison’s (new Cato CEO and former CEO of BB&T) book on the financial collapse and its progressivist origins in the affordable housing programs of the 90′s:

http://www.amazon.com/Financial-Crisis-Free-Market-Cure/dp/0071806776/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358880401&sr=8-1&keywords=john+allison

Allison’s former finance company, BB&T, managed to weather the fiscal collapse just fine posting profits when other institutions like Citi and Bear Stearns were needing a lifeline from the government. Why? Because BB&T operated from an Austrian Economist orientation and understood the inevitable consequences of the affordable housing policies that were being imposed on banking and finance institutions by regulators. Consequently their policy was to limit their exposure to affordable housing type mortgage offerings while still operating within the letter of the law.

Allison gave a terrific talk at AEI, and his stories relating the sorts of things that were occuring on the regulatory level in the finance industry would have made Kafka blush. If you don’t have a chance to read his book, I highly recommend watching his talk at AEI:

http://www.aei.org/events/2012/12/06/culture-of-competition-ceo-series/

By: sara

sara — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 16:13:16 +0000

Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada, (trans. for the first time in ’09 or ’10). Based on real events, this is a story about everyday resistance to the Nazis that was greatly admired by Primo Levi.

By: Carl Eric Scott

Carl Eric Scott — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:34:55 +0000

Oh, and thanks, Paul. Those McWilliams books are really good, and if we really are in an era of “progressive ascendancy,” then the Blaisdell case would be one useful to revisit.

By: Carl Eric Scott

Carl Eric Scott — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:25:13 +0000

John, the Richards book is fun and remarkably well-written. That ghost writer was worth his weight in gold. Insightful stuff on the music throughout, and other odds and ends, such as certain police dynamics. It is ultimately more than a bit Polly-Annish–its (strange-to-say-it) sunniness comes from its not brooding on certain issues of responsibility, societal breakdown, the 60s-gone-sour, etc. Richards has no major reflection or apologies to make for his junkie-ism (which we learn was only physically possible because his pop-star riches allowed him to mainly use only the best-grade dope, not the case for 99.5% of junkies) or for the Stones/rock phenom in general.

I will say that read together, the two memoirs indicate that ALMOST FAMOUS if anything downplayed the decadence of the 70s rock scene, and that that was closely connected to the sexual aspect of screamin’ female fans’ Elvismania/Beatlemania which came earlier. Prior to punk, rock really was more about “gettin’ some” than I, for one, had realized.

P.S. If anyone knows of any responses to Richards’s portrayal of what was “normal” with respect to partying and sex in the black communities of the 60s and 70s, let me know.

By: Notable New Books I Read in 2012, pt. 2 | CATHOLIC FEAST

Notable New Books I Read in 2012, pt. 2 | CATHOLIC FEAST — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:02:37 +0000

[...] First off, the comment thread to the part 1 resulted in something of an informal pomocon booklist. Here are a few of the more interesting recent titles from it, IMO: Richard Source: Postmodern Conservative [...]

By: paul seaton

paul seaton — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 03:23:32 +0000

We’re in a Progressive-ascendancy era, so we have to do our due diligence. Indispensable readings of the past year, therefore: the Claremont Review of Books 10-year anthology, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, as well as Jean Yarlbrough’s fine study of TR and the American Political Tradition. Limited, of course, by their founders-and-Lincoln-are-perfect normative dogmatism. Hence, the need to read Carey McWilliams’s more expansive (if flawed by anti-framerism) view of America: Redeeming Democracy in America and The Democratic Soul. His “Standing at Armageddon: The Religious and Ethical Views of Progressives” is a nice link with the Claremont position. Two more off-the-beaten-track books: I found Fighting Foreclosure: The Blaisdell Case, the Contract Clause, and the Great Depression, by John Fliter and Derek Hoff surprisingly good, given their own liberal sympathies. All the elements of the issue — federalism, contract clause, state police powers, etc. — are brought in, so one can disagree with their conclusions while learning a lot along the way. And, finally, I reread the two volumes of the Kelly/Harbison/Belz work, The American Constitution: Its Origins and Development. A very informative blend of political history and constitutional debate and development. The first two authors were New Deal liberals, Herman Belz is a political conservative who did very good work on the slavery and the Constitution, including Reconstruction; the reworking of the original text by Belz produced a remarkably balanced text. Gibson is very good on laying out the scholarly landscape; Carl’s right, Interpreting is the better book. (BTW: did you see Finkelman’s longish anti-Jefferson, anti-founders, op. ed. in the New York Times a while back? A tissue of half-truths and, especially, omissions masquerading as scholarship-for-the public.)

By: John Presnall

John Presnall — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 00:31:35 +0000

Good take on Who I Am. There was little noteworthy in it on the music scene or the times. I saw Townshend on Morning Joe and he said more of interest there regarding his generation in relation to those earlier, the impact of the 60s than he did in the book. I read about half of it (up thru the Quadrophenia parts), and found little insight.

His manner of describing his sex life was off putting. And while I don’t think he was guilty of any crime regarding the whole child pornography thing, he didn’t give an adequate account of it. Is Keith Richards’ Life really worth reading (i.e., if you enjoy rock memoirs)?

I guess I’ll have to look at the 2nd ed. of Gibson’s book. Thee was an interesting exchange on it in Interpretation about two years ago between Gibson and Jerry Weinberger (I think).