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Good political books?

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KindaSkolarly

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Good political books?

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I don't read many books on politics now, not since the advent of the internet. But I've read some good ones over the years. The first that truly impressed me was Theodore H. White's The Making of the President, 1960. Excellent book, won the Pulitzer Prize. I read his other Making of the President books, but the first was the best, in my opinion.

The last political book I read was Liberal Fascism, by Jonah Goldberg. Excellent book.

Anybody got any favorites, books to recommend?
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Re: Good political books?

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I always liked "Truman" (can't remember the author). It's a biggie but very interesting. I've always thought Harry Truman to be one of the best Presidents the USA ever had (even though I'm a conservative Republican). We sure need someone like him now! As a companion piece, try "American Caesar" by William Manchester. This is a biography of Douglas MacArthur - a military genius whose colossal ego eventually destroyed his career.
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Re: Good political books?

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That Truman bio must be the one by David McCoullough. I agree it was a very interesting read. There could be a parallel of sorts between Truman and the current occupant of the WH. Very little was expected of Truman, whose past as a pawn of the Missouri political machine always stuck to him, and FDR was a hard act to follow. Donald Trump likewise faced heavy skepticism due to his lack of experience and inappropriate behavior during the campaign. I don't know how long it took Truman to turn things around. Trump, of course, hasn't been able to yet.

The best political book of the few I've read is Obama's Dreams from My Father. It's not the typical book by a pol, much more of an autobiography showing in skillful detail all of the influences that shaped the future president. Throughout it you marvel at the improbability of a person with such a background someday becoming president.
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Re: Good political books?

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Old Reb, that book about MacArthur does sound interesting. I read a book about the Korean War and my recollection is the North Koreans and Chinese analyzed MacArthur and decided to work with his Trump sized ego. They kept withdrawing strategically knowing MacArthur would take credit for quickly winning huge amounts of real estate. Then at a certain point they swarmed back from the North and drove the allies South of what is now the DMZ.

With America's poor memory, I can imagine history repeating as Trump and his MacArthur sized ego fall for the same strategy...

Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power by Robert Dallek is good. Imagine the unmitigated nerve to convince Vietnam to delay peace talks with President Johnson so they'd get a better deal with Nixon. Then to continue that war for another four years...
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I'm a military history buff, especially the Civil War, WWI, WWII and Korean War. My wife is originally from Korea and suffered through the Korean War first hand as a girl of 9. I've made many trips over there and have seen a lot of the country. Believe me, you don't want to fight a ground war over there!

The best book I ever read about the Korean War was "The Coldest Winter" by David Halberstam (2007). It goes into a lot of detail about the contentious relationship between Truman and MacArthur and how MacArthur was deluded by his own staff (and ego) into believing that the Chinese would do nothing as he advanced up to the Yalu River.

I agree with many of the parallels between Truman and Trump. However, Truman proved that he could actually lead this country and get things done, which Is why I respect him so much. All I've heard from Trump so far is a lot of hot air with nothing to show for it. I reluctantly voted for him because of the alternative of having Hilary as President. My first choice was Gov. Kasich of Ohio. If Trump runs for a second term in 2020, I will not support him.
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Yeah, I was pulling for Kasich, too, voted in the Republican primary in VA because I liked Kasich and a vote for him was also a vote against Trump.
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Speaking of McCullough, I read "1776" this summer and was fairly impressed. I've had my eye on his book about John Adams, but now I'll have to look at Truman. Thanks for the recommendations.

I see that McCullough published a book earlier this year, entitled, "The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For". It's actually a collection of McCullough's speeches.

https://www.amazon.com/American-Spirit- ... mccullough
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Re: Good political books?

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KindaSkolarly wrote:Anybody got any favorites, books to recommend?
As it happens, booktalk.org has one of the greatest political novels of all time as its current fiction selection! The Master and Margarita is a political satire on Soviet life in the 1920s and 1930s from a White Russian first hand perspective. Our most recent discussion is at chapter-nine-koroviev-s-tricks-t28676.html

Yesterday I listened to this fascinating short interview with a Ukrainian emigrant to the USA, now an economics academic, explaining that the soft young millennials could not imagine the reality of life under communism and this was causing American thinking to skew badly.
KindaSkolarly

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Re: Good political books?

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I've found a pdf of The Master and Margarita. When I finish the ebooks I'm reading now I'll start that one, after first going through the Booktalk thread dedicated to it. But that'll be a while.

I read American Caesar some time ago. Mention of it here made me think of Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I read those back to back and thought both were excellent.

But since then I've learned that, to paraphrase I forget whom, recording facts is only 1/2 of the historian's job; the other half is to hide facts. That's why I now tend to steer clear of history books that traditional reviewers praise. To paraphrase somebody else, history is a lie agreed upon.

As far as history writing that didn't get the corporate seal of approval, The Creature from Jekyll Island tells an important story. The book's pretty disorganized but contains a lot of information. The U.S. was conquered by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Before then, the U.S. Treasury handled our government's monetary concerns. After the Act, a consortium of private banks (the Fed) began printing U.S. currency and loaning it to the government at interest. 104 years later we're, what, 20-30 trillion in debt? Thanks to the Federal Reserve Act and the abuses it made possible. The Creature from Jekyll Island explains how the Fed came to be.

Image

https://wrathoftheawakenedsaxon.files.w ... riffin.pdf

I've never read a biography of Truman, but do any of them talk about his membership in the Freemasons? The Masons have been waging war against Christianity for a long time, and Truman targeted Hiroshima and Nagasaki with A-bombs. Only 1% of Japan was Christian at the time, but 10% of the people killed by the nukes were Christian. Truman targeted Japan's two largest Christian cities.

Lots of good work has been done by researchers who've broken free of partisan, national and educational biases. William Cooper is a good example. Can't recall if I've mentioned him on this forum, but I like to recommend an episode of his Mystery Babylon radio series to people. The show about the Skull and Bones Society is excellent. It's at the Archive.org link below (#14), just an hour long. Cooper knew his history but is best remembered for some of the odd beliefs he held in his long career (extraterrestrials). At any rate, he predicted the Sept 11 attack and bin Laden and all of that, then after the attack he wouldn't shut up about the government's role in it. Local police murdered him about 6 weeks after 9/11:

https://archive.org/details/MysteryBaby ... _Bones.mp3

I read somewhere that Time magazine says Hillary Clinton's What Happened is the best book of 2017. Best non-fiction, but I reckon they flipped a coin to choose the category. I haven't read Dreams of my Father, but if Obama didn't name Frank Marshall Davis as his daddy, then that book's definitely a work of fiction.
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DWill

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KindaSkolarly wrote: I read somewhere that Time magazine says Hillary Clinton's What Happened is the best book of 2017. Best non-fiction, but I reckon they flipped a coin to choose the category. I haven't read Dreams of my Father, but if Obama didn't name Frank Marshall Davis as his daddy, then that book's definitely a work of fiction.
I haven't read Clinton's book, either. About Frank Marshall Davis, you mean non-biological father, obviously, but are going with the claim that Obama's relationship with Davis was so close as to make Davis a father-figure. The Washington Post's Fact Checker column gave this claim 3 Pinocchios (out of 4 possible). That mainstream media source is not one everyone trusts, I realize. That's where we are today. The Fact Checker writer says that Paul Kengor, the writer who made the father-figure case in a book, made a lengthy rebuttal in The American Thinker. I did not read it.

Bypassing this matter of how much influence the African-American Davis had on Obama (the influence on Obama's evolving thought on race and class doesn't seem disputed), can we say that Obama left any communist ideals aside when he became senator and then president? If we can't agree on that, can we agree at least that Obama did a very poor job implementing those ideals during his terms as president?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fac ... eafdb03d53
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