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My boy is 16 and my girl will be 14 too soon to contemplate. They will be voters soon!
I am going to ask them to read three basic books on politics if they read nothing else.
Federalist papers
Machiavellis's Discourses on Livy's Roman History
Road to Serfdom.
What three books would you recommend to a new voter?
Modern Times- Paul Johnson
De Toqueville- Democracy in America
Adam Smith- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
the chances of your child of getting through any of those is, well Johnson is probably doable at that age inho, the rest, hey, a chapter a week- read discuss...
Around 16 on, sure. I was reading Plutarch when I was 16...so its all good.
What three books would you recommend to a new voter?
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality and On the Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
Declarations of Independence and A People's History of The United States by Howard Zinn
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
Common Sense and Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
An Economic Theory of Democracy by Anthony Downs
Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
Two Treatises of Government by John Locke
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
The Origins of Totalitarianism and The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt
Statism and Anarchy by Mikhail Bakunin
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution by Peter Kropotkin
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
Das Kapital by Karl Marx
Individualism Old and New by John Dewey
and of course the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights and Amendments, Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, and I think as a good contrast, the Constitution of South Africa.
Recommended to a 14-year-old? Not all of them. But "my essential book list for politics" and all things I'd recommend to someone curious about political history and philosophy in their late teens or so.
But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations...This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.
John Adams, letter to H. Niles, February 13, 181
Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws. He is obliged, consequently, to contribute his share to the expense of this protection; and to give his personal service, or an equivalent, when necessary. But no part of the property of any individual can, with justice, be taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his own consent, or that of the representative body of the people. In fine, the people of this commonwealth are not controllable by any other laws than those to which their constitutional representative body have given their consent.
John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776
Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States.... I have, throughout my whole life, held the practice of slavery in... abhorrence.
John Adams, letter to Evans, June 8, 1819
Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.
John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776
Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.
John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776
I Pray Heaven to Bestow The Best of Blessing on THIS HOUSE, and on ALL that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof!
John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, November 2, 1800
Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.
John Adams, Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law, 1765
That, as a republic is the best of governments, so that particular arrangements of the powers of society, or, in other words, that form of government which is best contrived to secure an impartial and exact execution of the laws, is the best of republics.
John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams, Address to the Military, October 11, 1798
We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections.
John Adams, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1797
D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.
John Adams, An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, August 29, 1763
The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If `Thou shalt not covet' and `Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.
John Adams, A Defense of the American Constitutions, 1786
J
Somebody mentioned Howard Zinn, very appalling, partisan, revisionist. Bad ideas, a para-phrased tertiary source that is extremely misleading which goes arm and arm, hand and hand with the dirt-bag Chomsky.
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality and On the Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
Declarations of Independence and A People's History of The United States by Howard Zinn
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
Common Sense and Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
An Economic Theory of Democracy by Anthony Downs
Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
Two Treatises of Government by John Locke
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
The Origins of Totalitarianism and The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt
Statism and Anarchy by Mikhail Bakunin
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution by Peter Kropotkin
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
Das Kapital by Karl Marx
Individualism Old and New by John Dewey
and of course the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights and Amendments, Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, and I think as a good contrast, the Constitution of South Africa.
Recommended to a 14-year-old? Not all of them. But "my essential book list for politics" and all things I'd recommend to someone curious about political history and philosophy in their late teens or so.
So you both ignored the fact that we're talking about a 14-year old and that the OP asked for three books.
Good job, Captain Overkill.
John Adams, by Page Smith. Two Volumes. 1962
I think its a shame our High Schools do not teach us about John Adams, I see this as nothing less than a tragedy. So much in this book, so much that John Adams wrote is relevant to today it is uncanny and showed me that John Adams was brilliant. John Adams knowledge of politics, history, the nature of politics is as important today as it was in 1776. John Adams insight and observation to the motives and psychology of politicians was perfect. I wish I could state this more eloquently, a few quotes, if I can find them, will say it better than I.
John Adams Quotes
But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations...This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.
John Adams, letter to H. Niles, February 13, 181
Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws. He is obliged, consequently, to contribute his share to the expense of this protection; and to give his personal service, or an equivalent, when necessary. But no part of the property of any individual can, with justice, be taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his own consent, or that of the representative body of the people. In fine, the people of this commonwealth are not controllable by any other laws than those to which their constitutional representative body have given their consent.
John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776
D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.
John Adams, An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, August 29, 1763
The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If `Thou shalt not covet' and `Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.
John Adams, A Defense of the American Constitutions, 1786
Somebody mentioned Howard Zinn, very appalling, partisan, revisionist. Bad ideas, a para-phrased tertiary source that is extremely misleading which goes arm and arm, hand and hand with the dirt-bag Chomsky.
John Adams, by Page Smith. Two Volumes. 1962
I think its a shame our High Schools do not teach us about John Adams, I see this as nothing less than a tragedy. So much in this book, so much that John Adams wrote is relevant to today it is uncanny and showed me that John Adams was brilliant. John Adams knowledge of politics, history, the nature of politics is as important today as it was in 1776. John Adams insight and observation to the motives and psychology of politicians was perfect. I wish I could state this more eloquently, a few quotes, if I can find them, will say it better than I.
John Adams Quotes
But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations...This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.
John Adams, letter to H. Niles, February 13, 181
The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If `Thou shalt not covet' and `Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.
John Adams, A Defense of the American Constitutions, 1786
Somebody mentioned Howard Zinn, very appalling, partisan, revisionist. Bad ideas, a para-phrased tertiary source that is extremely misleading which goes arm and arm, hand and hand with the dirt-bag Chomsky.
Didn't you hear, ALL quotes are inherently out of context and therefore mean nothing at all!
My boy is 16 and my girl will be 14 too soon to contemplate. They will be voters soon!
I am going to ask them to read three basic books on politics if they read nothing else.
Federalist papers
Machiavellis's Discourses on Livy's Roman History
Road to Serfdom.
What three books would you recommend to a new voter?
May they listen and learn.
What three books would you recommend to a new voter?
Pinheads and Patriots.
Huh? You don't even know what my political philosophy is. Why are you getting so bent out of shape... Atlas shrugged is fiction, is it not? The OP is asking for HISTORY BOOKS.So is your political philosophy.
My boy is 16 and my girl will be 14 too soon to contemplate. They will be voters soon!
I am going to ask them to read three basic books on politics if they read nothing else.
Federalist papers
Machiavellis's Discourses on Livy's Roman History
Road to Serfdom.
What three books would you recommend to a new voter?
Many, many classic books have been mentioned so far; it's difficult to pick just three!
My three books:
Atlas Shrugs
The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot
Free to Choose
Later he goes on to explain why the 'communism' he saw specifically [and, I would argue, dogmatically held beliefs in general] do not yield to facts or intellectual challenges.The intellectual attraction of Marxism was that it exploded liberal fallacies- which really were fallacies. It taught the bitter truth that progress is not automatic, that boom and bust are inherent in capitalism, that social injustice and racial discrimination are not cured merely by the passage of time and that power politics cannot be 'abolished', but only used for good or bad ends,
Later still, he reveals his own cognitive dissonance as the truths he saw with his own eyes challenged his faith and he slowly came out of his stupor and rejected the religion the dogma of Stalinism.Here, indeed, is the explanation of a phenomenon which has puzzled many observers. How could these intellectuals accept the dogmatism of Stalinism? The answers are to be scattered through the pages which follow. For the intellectual, material comforts are relatively unimportant; what he cares mostly about is spiritual freedom. The strength of the Catholic Church has always been that it demands the sacrifice of that freedom uncompromisingly, and condemns spiritual pride as a deadly sin. The Communist novice, subjecting his soul to the canon law of the Kremlin, felt felt something of the release which Catholicism also brings to the intellectual, wearied and worried by the privilege of freedom.
Once the renunciation has been made, the mind, instead of operating freely, becomes the servant of a higher and unquestioned purpose. To deny the truth is an act of service. This, of course is why it is useless to discuss any particular aspect of politics with a Communist. Any genuine intellectual contact which you have with him involves a challenge to his fundamental faith, a struggle for his soul. For it is very much easier to lay the oblation of spiritual pride on the altar of word revolution than to snatch it back again
The theme of the speech was the situation in Spain; it contained not a single word of criticism of the Party or of Russia. But in contained three phrases, deliberately chosen because to normal people they were platitudes, to Communists a declaration of war. The first was: 'No movement, party, or person can claim the privilege of infallibility.' The second was: 'Appeasing the enemy is as foolish as persecuting the friend who pursues your own aim by a different road'. The third was a quotation from Thomas Mann:'A harmful truth is better than a useful lie'
