Thomas Jefferson said, “man cannot live without books.” Here at American Maggie, we think that goes for women too. So in the second half of this two-part series we’re presenting the rest of our annual Christmas list of great reads to give and to get. To read Part 1, click here.
The Housing Boom and Bust, Thomas Sowell
$24.95, 184 pages
If, thanks to the recession, the items on your Christmas list this year are more numerous than the dollars in your bank account, Thomas Sowell would like a word with you. The author of such primers as Basic Economics, Sowell is the economist for non-economists, the expert for the inexperienced. His commonsense approach to financial quagmire has won him a large following of readers delighted to be neither condescended to nor ignored. In the land of economists, he is a populist among princes. Of course, Sowell is no less respected (or credentialed) amongst the ivory tower intelligentsia, though his conservative views have made more than a few institutions wish to pull up the drawbridge. In The Housing Boom he analyzes the current crisis (bad ideas + big government = disaster) and argues that the recession is not the result of a monetary Watergate or an economic Pearl Harbor. It is the consequence of a domino-like series of bad decisions and inept reactions: “in short, the policies and practices of many institutions, local and national, public and private, set the stage for the roots of the housing boom and bust.” Sowell offers no quick fixes, save one: the principles in The Housing Boom will make a useful voter guide in 2010.
Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy’s Guide, Joseph Epstein (published 2005; re-issued 2009)
$13.99, 224 pages
The former editor of the delightful American Scholar and author of numerous essays, stories, and articles, Joseph Epstein is a quick study of character. A prolific writer on human foibles, he has devoted an entire book to arrogance (Snobbery: The American Version) and another to social climbing (Ambition: The Secret Passion). But in Democracy’s Guide Epstein paints a portrait of failings relatively restrained and unglamorous. Meet Alexis de Tocqueville, a politician of meager rhetorical gifts, sallow-skinned, sickly, and with a maddening propensity to forget the names of influentials helpful to his career. He lacked both ambition and arrogance and possessed a personality, by historic accounts, humble and ill-assured; “less easily well met; he lacked the gift of making himself quickly liked.”
Yet to read de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, still relevant more than 170 years after its writing, is to envision a Nostradamus of the public stage, where prophecy and foresight are rendered with mathematic precision. Epstein’s gift to readers is to draw back the curtain on the private life of a public man, tempering the oracle-like aura of Democracy with the faults of human character. As happens in many successful life stories, de Tocqueville’s weaknesses abetted his strengths.
Today, de Tocqueville’s work while serving in the Chamber of Deputies would scarcely warrant a mention on CNN’s political ticker. His weaknesses at the podium (the lack of social finesse, the halting voice) drove him instead to cultivate a relationship with voters and an intimate knowledge of community and society at the local level, talents he would later so effectively utilize on that famous journey across the United States. This grassroots education would ultimately shape his understanding – and his remarkable insights in Democracy in America – far more than a sparkling career as a rhetorician would have done. Democracy found a fitting guide in this philosopher king.
Cost varies
“What are you doing?” I asked [the soldier] without fear,
“Come in this moment, it’s freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!”
…
Then he sighed and he said “It’s really all right,
I’m out here by choice. I’m here every night.”
It’s my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.
- Anonymous
When Operation Paperback opened its doors as a nonprofit in 1999, boredom rather than bombs threatened most troops. A decade and two war theaters later, their motto speaks to the transforming and comforting value of books for those far from home and family: “Giving Our Troops the Opportunity to Escape Into a Good Book Since 1999.” Through either monetary donations or book “care packages” you can help ensure that this season American troops receive the gift of reading. The process is as simple as visiting the website and inputting the main genres you have around your home (sci-fi, biography, etc.) or are inclined to purchase. Operation Paperback generates a list of names and addresses and you package up the books and mail them off. The Operation has shipped reading materials to more than 30 countries and locations, including Afghanistan and Iraq, and four fleets worldwide.
If you’re inclined to give financial support, other Operation Paperback projects include providing educational resources to service members, language phrasebooks, children’s books for soldiers to read over webcam to their kids, and counseling books for returning troops. You may donate here.
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Skyla Freeman (skylafreeman.com) is a former writer for President George W. Bush. She blogs about style and culture at Sanity Fair online (sfair.blogspot.com).
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