The Search for Ideas
Gaining Insights into the issues that matter
Thought-provoking books that both campaign-watchers and presidential candidates might find worthwhile.
The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace by Ali A. Allawi
• This is an insider's account of what went wrong by one of Iraq's most respected politicians. The book drives home the folly of ignoring the counsel of those who understood Iraq better than anyone else—the Iraqis themselves.
Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present by Michael B. Oren
• A senior fellow at Jerusalem's Shalem Center, Oren shows that Americans long before George W. Bush have harbored the fantasy that the Muslim-Arab world could easily be made into something resembling the Christian, liberal West.
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner
• Written by a veteran intelligence reporter for the New York Times, this painstakingly documented history makes it clear that the CIA's greatest failures have resulted from the inability of all but one of the past 11 presidents (George H. W. Bush) to understand the CIA or use it wisely.
The Great Risk Shift: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care, and Retirement—And How You Can Fight Back by Jacob S. Hacker
• Yale political scientist Hacker argues that even as the family and the workplace have weakened as sources of stability, government and corporations have slowly dismantled the safety net of health insurance, unemployment aid, and retirement pensions.
The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Schlaes
• Before the next president launches a raft of new government programs, he or she should read this con serva tive appraisal of the Great Depression. Syndicated columnist Schlaes is not the first to show how many of Hoover's and Roosevelt's decisions made the Depression last even longer than it should have. But she also makes a powerful case that the real heroes of the day were extraordinary individuals, well known and not so well known, who embodied the American character by aiding and inspiring their fellow citizens in a variety of innovative ways.
Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America by Cullen Murphy
• Of the many excellent points made in this trenchant comparison of America and Rome, Murphy, editor at large for Vanity Fair, illuminates the perils of unrestrained "outsourcing," which, particularly in the past decade, has put more and more government functions—from gathering intelligence to running prisons—into the hands of private contractors. Rome, too, went the way of privatization, Murphy cautions, and the eventual result was medieval feudalism, with every fiefdom out for its own good.
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