The Year in Books

reason staffers pick the best books of 2008

December 23, 2008

(Page 2 of 2)

One can always pick knits with the inelegant phrase “new Cold War”—there will always be more differences than similarities with the old one—and countless pro-Putin pundits, columnists, and bloggers do, citing any criticism of America’s old adversary as neo-imperialist nonsense. But with the introduction of a bill into the Putin-controlled Duma broadening the definition of treason to include the most banal of criticism, Lucas appears more prescient than overheated. And one cannot come away from Lucas’s terrific and terrifying account of transcendent Putinism thinking that all is well—or that a Western-style democracy exists—in Mother Russia.

Damon W. Root, associate editor

University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein has been fighting the good fight on behalf of property rights and limited constitutional government for decades. This year's Supreme Neglect: How to Revive Constitutional Protection for Private Property distills that work into a concise, highly readable account. Starting with the premise that "property is the guardian of every other right," Epstein traces the right of property from its first systematic appearance in Roman law through to the threadbare legal protections it receives in modern America, a disastrous state of affairs he persuasively blames on Progressive and New Deal reformers (and Supreme Court justices) who championed state power over individual liberty. As Epstein writes, "the faithful constitutional protection of private property is not some parochial exercise, but is an indispensable part of any comprehensive constitutional order that advances long-term social welfare." Supreme Neglect offers an eloquent defense of that position.

Jesse Walker, managing editor

It is a blurb-writer's cliché to declare that a work of nonfiction "reads like a novel"; like many blurb-writer's clichés, it is almost never true. With Rick Perlstein's Nixonland, a history of the United States from 1964 to 1972, it is. The chapter on the early life of Richard Nixon feels like the foreboding opening to a '40s crime story, while other sections resemble a Dos Passos media collage. Nixonland features complex characters, entertaining set pieces, and a sense of the perfect detail. It is hard to forget, say, the grotesque moment in Nixon and Kissinger's encounter with Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai when Mao reveals that the missing military leader Lin Biao perished in a plane crash. "Chou hinted that it had not been an accident," Perlstein writes. "Nixon winked his solidarity. 'The chairman can be sure,' he said, 'that whatever we discuss, nothing goes beyond this room.'" (The author is self-confident enough not to underline the fact that it eventually did leave the room.)

The book is also an impressive, wide-ranging piece of scholarship, with a lens that moves smoothly from biography to sociology to cultural studies. Perlstein's concerns stretch from Nixon's foreign policy to the movie Patton—and, just as important, the ways Patton influenced Nixon's foreign policy.

David Weigel, contributing editor

The Great Evangelical Panic of the Oughts began on November 3, 2004, with the re-election of George W. Bush and the almost immediate attribution to “values voters” and right-wing Christians who, in their fervor to ban gay marriage, gave the Republicans their biggest majority since the 1930s. The Panic struck authors, publishers, and politicians with plague-like force—it’s hard to remember now, but the idiotic congressional “rescue” mission for Terri Schiavo was initially viewed as a stroke of Republican brilliance. Its symptoms were smugness, shrillness, and a desire to defeat Rick Santorum. The Panic is over now and Rapture Ready, Daniel Radosh’s book of funny, insightful, and sympathetic reporting, is the only book that should survive it. Radosh is neither conservative nor Christian, but he is genuinely interested in the billion-dollar industry that has grown, over decades, to service America’s evangelicals. He combines Paul Theroux travel-plus-conversations with history, hard numbers, and—when it’s called for—stunned mockery of the worst elements of Christian pop culture. There’s more insight here than in a hundred screeds against “Christofascists.” It’s the Let Us Now Praise Famous Men of Red America, and will be worth reading long after people forget what that term meant.

Matt Welch, editor in chief, Reason magazine

The greatest public policy books—not an oxymoron, I swear!—are able to change the way you think, even or especially on topics you might otherwise know. I don't claim to know economics well, but I did live through a time when persistent inflation was the number-one domestic policy issue, and bien pensants from President Carter on down just assumed it was the inevitable, if morale-sapping cost of living in the modern world. What Robert Samuelson accomplishes with this book—which I was proud to excerpt in the current issue of reason—is change the way you look at recent history, merely through the act of describing it with proper terminology and emphases. In the process you come to admire further those political actors who chose to fight inflation and win, while losing further respect for those who were not only disastrously wrong on economics, but cowardly in pretending that this important historical shift either didn't take place or wasn't important to begin with.

Comments

Warty|12.23.08 @ 4:44PM|#

The Baroque Cycle was great. Fuck you, KMW.

|12.23.08 @ 4:49PM|#

"Little Brother" was indeed very good. I really hope a good portion of high school kids all over the world read it. I'd recommend government officials read it too but I'm afraid they are too far gone. Hope lies in the kids.

|12.23.08 @ 5:24PM|#

Didn't Welch have a book or something? I can't remember...

ed|12.23.08 @ 5:45PM|#

You might want to correct the dual entry of The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath. There must be a ninth-best choice out there. I'll look for all of these at half-price next year in the remainders bin, alongside Hillary, American Monarch and Huck! The Arkansas Troubadour.

SIV|12.23.08 @ 6:04PM|#

I'll look for all of these at half-price next year in the remainders bin

It won't be wobbly remainder table either. The short leg will be held up by a copy of McCain: The Myth of a Maverick

MNG|12.23.08 @ 7:17PM|#

The Epstein book looks good, that guy is one smart m*th*rf*ck*r.

"The short leg will be held up by a copy of McCain: The Myth of a Maverick"

Considering he wrote the book way before Mccain was the nominee and that this was certainly far from a foregone conclusion, I'd say Welch did really well. I saw him on at least three interviews on other major outlets. No offense to the many great writers here but that's three more than I saw of any other regular Reason writers. Congrats Matt.

|12.23.08 @ 7:26PM|#

How did Ron Paul's "A Revolution: The Manifesto" not make anyone's list? What a ghastly oversight!

Scott Carpenter|12.23.08 @ 8:39PM|#

It took me a while to appreciate the Baroque Cycle. I ground out on about page 400 in Quicksilver and set it down for over a year. Then picked it up and got going again, and was very happy that I did. Well worth the effort to get through any slow parts, although after that one brick wall, it moved along at a typical Stephenson pace. If you like his other work and struggle with the Cycle, I highly recommend working harder at it. You'll be richly rewarded.

Willie W|12.23.08 @ 11:00PM|#

Sort of silly that this turned into a discussion about The Baroque Cycle . . .

Anyhow, I'd like to see a list of the WORST books of 2008.

Cock Fighting Specialist|12.23.08 @ 11:29PM|#

The short leg will be held up by a copy of McCain: The Myth of a Maverick

Don't worry, SIV, you can always pick up Epic Fail: The Sarah Palin Story for even less.

not me|12.24.08 @ 12:53AM|#

...The Baroque Cycle was great. Fuck you...

...and Anathem really sucks.


On the other hand the Long Now Foundation is pretty nifty

Xeones|12.24.08 @ 8:06AM|#

Um, yeah. The Baroque Cycle kicks much ass, and does so while wearing ridiculous frilly clothes. Haven't read Anathem yet though.

ed|12.24.08 @ 8:59AM|#

I'd like to see a list of the WORST books of 2008

How does one go about making a list that's nearly infinite?

Number 6|12.24.08 @ 10:20AM|#

I loved Anathem, but it's certainly not for everyone.

As far as worst books go, it'd be hard to beat The Shock Doctrine. I picked that one up with the genuine intention of giving Klein's ideas a fair hearing. I didn't make it past page 50, and I was really trying to take her seriously. The problem is that I've read Friedman, and she, apparently, has not. That, or she is either grossly intellectually dishonest or just stupid. The unfortunate thing is that she had the makings of a good book. An examination of the consequences of mixing mercantilism and strong-arm governments would have been worth reading. But it wouldn't have been a book about Friedman, since that's not what the man advocated, nor is it the logical consequence of his ideas.*

*That last thesis could have been worth exploring in depth. But she just took it as a given.

dhex|12.24.08 @ 11:06AM|#

"That, or she is either grossly intellectually dishonest or just stupid."

this is a lot of it, not stupid however. her audience will not have read friedman either.

sadly her audience is far, far larger than friedman's audience. it will probably become cultural canon.

Waterhouse|12.24.08 @ 4:16PM|#

Yeah, Baroque Cycle rules, Anathem was shit. :/

|12.24.08 @ 8:44PM|#

MOYNIHAN!!!!

It's not "Politskaya", it's "Politkovskaya".

Arvind|12.25.08 @ 9:51AM|#

Not many of these books seem to come to India though some of these books seem to be available at http://www.thestorez.com

Marilyn Terrell|12.27.08 @ 10:38AM|#

An intriguing list. I just wanted to point out that in the "New Cold War" review, the expression is "picking nits" (as in lice), not "picking knits".