Subject
Speak,
Memory Among 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the Century (fwd)
Memory Among 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the Century (fwd)
From
Date
Body
From: Alphonse Vinh <AVinh@npr.org>
Subject: National Review's 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the Century
VV's magnificient Speak, Memory! is rated # 90 on this list. This appears
in 3 May 1999 issue.
[Alphonse Vinh]
THE 100 BEST NON-FICTION
BOOKS OF THE CENTURY
Earlier this year, Random House announced that it
would release a list of the 100 best non-fiction
books
of the century. The publisher had enjoyed success
(and controversy) with its 100 best novels; now it
would do this. Here at National Review, we decided
to get a jump on them by forming our own panel and
offering our own list. Under the leadership of our
reporter John J. Miller, we have done so. We have
used a methodology that approaches the scientific.
But-certainly beyond, say, the first 40 books-the
fact
of the books' presence on the list is far more
important than their rankings. We offer a comment
from a panelist after many of the books; but the
panel overall, not the individual quoted, is
responsible for the ranking. So, here is our list,
for
your enjoyment, mortification, and stimulation.
THE PANEL:
Richard Brookhiser, NR senior editor
David Brooks, senior editor of The Weekly Standard
Christopher Caldwell, senior writer at The Weekly
Standard
Robert Conquest, historian
David Gelernter, writer and computer scientist
George Gilder, writer
Mary Ann Glendon, professor at Harvard Law School
Jeffrey Hart, NR senior editor
Mark Helprin, novelist
Arthur Herman, author of The Idea of Decline in
Western History
John Keegan, military historian
Michael Kelly, editor of National Journal
Florence King, author of Confessions of a Failed
Southern Lady
Michael Lind, journalist and novelist
John Lukacs, historian
Adam Meyerson, vice president at the Heritage
Foundation
Richard John Neuhaus, editor-in-chief of First
Things
John O'Sullivan, NR editor-at-large
Richard Pipes, historian
Abigail Thernstrom, senior fellow at the Manhattan
Institute
Stephan Thernstrom, historian
James Q. Wilson, author of The Moral Sense.
If you would like to purchase one of these classic
books, simply click on the title and
you'll be taken to Amazon.com.
THE LIST:
1. The Second World War, Winston S. Churchill
Brookhiser: "The big story of the century, told by
its major hero."
Vol. 1, The Gathering Storm
Vol. 2, Their Finest Hour
Vol. 3, The Grand Alliance
Vol. 4, The Hinge of Fate
Vol. 5, Closing the Ring
Vol. 6, Triumph and Tragedy
2. The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr I.
Solzhenitsyn
Neuhaus: "Marked the absolute final turning point
beyond which nobody could
deny the evil of the Evil Empire."
3. Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell
Herman: "Orwell's masterpiece-far superior to
Animal Farm and 1984. No
education in the meaning of the 20th century is
complete without it."
4. The Road to Serfdom, F. A. von Hayek
Helprin: "Shatters the myth that the
totalitarianisms 'of the Left' and 'of the
Right' stem from differing impulses."
5. Collected Essays, George Orwell
King: "Every conservative's favorite liberal and
every liberal's favorite
conservative. This book has no enemies."
6. The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper
Herman: "The best work on political philosophy in
the 20th century. Exposes
totalitarianism's roots in Plato, Hegel, and
Marx."
7. The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis
Brookhiser: "How modern philosophies drain meaning
and the sacred from our
lives."
8. Revolt of the Masses, José Ortega y Gasset
Gilder: "Prophesied the 20th century's debauchery
of democracy and science,
the barbarism of the specialist, and the
inevitable fatuity of public opinion.
Explained the genius of capitalist elites."
9. The Constitution of Liberty, F. A. von Hayek
O'Sullivan: "A great re-statement for this century
of classical liberalism by its
greatest modern exponent."
10. Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman
11. Modern Times, Paul Johnson
Herman: "Huge impact outside the academy, dreaded
and ignored inside it."
12. Rationalism in Politics, Michael Oakeshott
Herman: "Oakeshott is the 20th century's Edmund
Burke."
13. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Joseph
A. Schumpeter
Caldwell: "Locus classicus for the observation
that democratic capitalism
undermines itself through its very success."
14. Economy and Society, Max Weber
Lind: "Weber made permanent contributions to the
understanding of society
with his discussions of comparative religion,
bureaucracy, charisma, and the
distinctions among status, class, and party."
15. The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt
Caldwell: "Through Nazism and Stalinism, looks at
almost every pernicious
trend in the last century's politics with stunning
subtlety."
16. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Rebecca West
Kelly: "For its writing, not for its historical
accuracy."
17. Sociobiology, Edward O. Wilson
Lind: "Darwin put humanity in its proper place in
the animal kingdom. Wilson
put human society there, too."
18. Centissimus Annus, Pope John Paul II
19. The Pursuit of the Millennium, Norman Cohn
Neuhaus: "The authoritative refutation of
utopianism of the left, right, and
points undetermined."
20. The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank
Helprin: "An innocent's account of the greatest
evil imaginable. The most
powerful book of the century. Others may not
agree. No matter, I cast my lot
with this child."
Caldwell: "If one didn't know her fate, one might
read it as the reflections of any
girl. That one does know her fate makes this as
close to a holy book as the
century produced."
21. The Great Terror, Robert Conquest
Herman: "Documented for the first time the real
record of Stalinism in the
Soviet Union. A genuine monument of historical
research and reconstruction, a
true epic of evil."
22. Chronicles of Wasted Time, Malcolm Muggeridge
Gilder: "The best autobiography, Christian
confession, and historic meditation
of the century."
23. Relativity, Albert Einstein
Lind: "The most important physicist since Newton."
24. Witness, Whittaker Chambers
Caldwell: "Confession, history, potboiler-by a man
who writes like the literary
giant we would know him as, had not Communism got
him first."
25. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,
Thomas S. Kuhn
26. Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis
Neuhaus: "The most influential book of the most
influential Christian apologist
of the century."
27. The Quest for Community, Robert Nisbet
28. Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed.
Helprin: "The infinite riches of the world,
presented with elegance, confidence,
and economy."
29. Up in the Old Hotel, Joseph Mitchell
30. The Everlasting Man, G. K. Chesterton
Lukacs: "A great carillonade of Christian
verities."
31. Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton
O'Sullivan: "How to look at the Christian
tradition with fresh eyes."
32. The Liberal Imagination, Lionel Trilling
Hart: "The popular form of liberalism tends to
simplify and caricature when it
attempts moral aspiration-that is, it tends to
'Stalinism.'"
33. The Double Helix, James D. Watson
Herman: "Deeply hated by feminists because Watson
dares to suggest that the
male-female distinction originated in nature, in
the DNA code itself."
34. The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Richard
Phillips Feynman
Gelernter: "Outside of art (or maybe not), physics
is mankind's most beautiful
achievement; these three volumes are probably the
most beautiful ever written
about physics."
35. Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers,
Tom Wolfe
O'Sullivan: "Wolfe is our Juvenal."
36. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, Albert
Camus
37. The Unheavenly City, Edward C. Banfield
Neuhaus: "The volume that began the debunking of
New Deal socialism and its
public-policy consequences."
38. The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud
39. The Death and Life of Great American Cities,
Jane Jacobs
40. The End of History and the Last Man, Francis
Fukuyama
41. Joy of Cooking, Irma S. Rombauer, Marion
Rombauer Becker,
and Ethan Becker
42. The Age of Reform, Richard Hofstadter
Herman: "The single best book on American history
in this century, bar none."
43. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and
Money, John
Maynard Keynes
Hart: "Influential in suggesting that the business
cycle can be modified by
government investment and manipulation of tax
rates."
44. God & Man at Yale, William F. Buckley Jr.
Gilder: "Still correct and prophetic. It defines
the conservative revolt against
socialism and atheism on campus and in the
culture, and reconciles the alleged
conflict between capitalist and religious
conservatives."
45. Selected Essays, T. S. Eliot
Hart: "Shaped the literary taste of the
mid-century."
46. Ideas Have Consequences, Richard M. Weaver
47. The Economy of Cities, Jane Jacobs
48. The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom
49. Ethnic America, Thomas Sowell
50. An American Dilemma, Gunnar Myrdal
An American Dilemma, Vol. 1
An American Dilemma, Vol. 2
51. Three Case Histories, Sigmund Freud
Gelernter: "Beyond question Freud is history's
most important philosopher of
the mind, and he ranks alongside Eliot as the
century's greatest literary critic.
Modern intellectual life (left, right, and
in-between) would be unthinkable
without him."
52. The Struggle for Europe, Chester Wilmot
53. Main Currents in American Thought, Vernon
Louis Parrington
King: "An immensely readable history of ideas and
men. (Skip the fragmentary
third volume-he died before finishing it.)"
54. The Waning of the Middle Ages, Johann Huzinga
Lukacs: "Probably the finest historian who lived
in this century. "
55. Systematic Theology, Wolfhart Pannenberg
Neuhaus: "The best summary and reflection on
Christianity's encounter with the
Enlightenment project."
Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
Systematic Theology, Vol. 2
Systematic Theology, Vol. 3
56. The Campaign of the Marne, Sewell Tyng
Keegan: "A forgotten American's masterly account
of the First World War in the
West."
57. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig
Wittgenstein
Hart: "A terse summation of the analytic method of
the analytic school in
philosophy, and a heroic leap beyond it."
58. Insight: A Study of Human Understanding,
Bernard Lonergan
Glendon: "The Thomas Aquinas of the 20th century."
59. Being and Time, Martin Heidegger
Hart: "A seminal thinker, notwithstanding his
disgraceful error of equating
National Socialism with the experience of
'Being.'"
60. Disraeli, Robert Blake
Keegan: "Political biography as it should be
written."
61. Democracy and Leadership, Irving Babbitt
King: "A conservative literary critic describes
what happens when
humanitarianism over takes humanism."
62. The Elements of Style, William Strunk & E. B.
White
A. Thernstrom: "If only every writer would
remember just one of Strunk &
White's wonderful injunctions: 'Omit needless
words.' Omit needless words."
63. The Machiavellians, James Burnham
O'Sullivan: "Burnham is the greatest political
analyst of our century and this is
his best book."
64. Reflections of a Russian Statesman, Konstantin
P.
Pobedonostsev
King: "The 'culture war' as seen by the tutor to
the last two czars. A Russian Pat
Buchanan."
65. The Hedgehog and the Fox, Isaiah Berlin
66. Roll, Jordan, Roll, Eugene D. Genovese
Neuhaus: "The best account of American slavery and
the moral and cultural
forces that undid it."
67. The ABC of Reading, Ezra Pound
Brookhiser: "An epitome of the aging aesthetic
movement that will be forever
known as modernism."
68. The Second World War, John Keegan
Hart: "A masterly history in a single volume."
69. The Making of Homeric Verse, Milman Parry
Lind: "Genuine discoveries in literary study are
rare. Parry's discovery of the
oral formulaic basis of the Homeric epics, the
founding texts of Western
literature, was one of them."
70. The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling, Angus
Wilson
Keegan: "A life of a great author told through the
transmutation of his
experience into fictional form."
71. Scrutiny, F. R. Leavis
Hart: "Enormously important in education,
especially in England. Leavis
understood what one kind of 'living English' is."
72. The Edge of the Sword, Charles de Gaulle
Brookhiser: "A lesser figure than Churchill, but
more philosophical (and hence,
more problematic)."
73. R. E. Lee, Douglas Southall Freeman
Conquest: "The finest work on the Civil War."
74. Bureaucracy, Ludwig von Mises
75. The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton
Neuhaus: "A classic conversion story of a modern
urban sophisticate."
76. Balzac, Stefan Zweig
King: "On the joys of working one's self to death.
The chapter 'Black Coffee' is a
masterpiece of imaginative reconstruction."
77. The Good Society, Walter Lippmann
Gilder: "Written during the Great Depression. A
corruscating defense of the
morality of capitalism."
78. Silent Spring, Rachel Carson
Lind: "For all the excesses of the environmental
movement, the realization that
human technology can permanently damage the
earth's environment marked a
great advance in civilization. Carson's book, more
than any other, publicized this
message."
79. The Christian Tradition, Jaroslav Pelikan
Neuhaus: "The century's most comprehensive account
of Christian teaching
from the second century on."
80. Strange Defeat, Marc Bloch
Herman: "A great historian's personal account of
the fall of France in 1940."
81. Looking Back, Norman Douglas
Conquest: "Fascinating memoirs of a remarkable
writer."
82. Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres, Henry Adams
83. Poetry and the Age, Randall Jarrell
Caldwell: "The book for showing how 20th- century
poets think, what their
poetry does, and why it matters."
84. Love in the Western World, Denis de Rougemont
Brookhiser: "What has become of eros over the last
seven centuries."
85. The Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk
86. Wealth and Poverty, George Gilder
87. Battle Cry of Freedom, James M. McPherson
88. Henry James, Leon Edel
King: "All the James you want without having to
read him."
89. Essays of E. B. White, E. B. White
Gelernter: "White is the apotheosis of the
American liberal now spurned and
detested by the Left (and the cultural
mainstream). His mesmerized devotion to
the objects of his affection-his family, the
female sex, his farm, the English
language, Manhattan, the sea, America, Maine, and
freedom, in descending
order-is movingly absolute."
90. Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov
91. The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe
92. Darwin's Black Box, Michael J. Behe
Gilder: "Overthrows Darwin at the end of the 20th
century in the same way that
quantum theory overthrew Newton at the beginning."
93. The Civil War, Shelby Foote
94. The Way the World Works, Jude Wanniski
Gilder: "The best book on economics. Shows fatuity
of still-dominant
demand-side model, with its silly preoccupation
with accounting trivia, like the
federal budget and trade balance and savings
rates, in an economy with $40
trillion or so in assets that rise and fall weekly
by trillions."
95. To the Finland Station, Edmund Wilson
Herman: "The best single book on Karl Marx and
Marx's place in modern
history."
96. Civilisation, Kenneth Clark
97. The Russian Revolution, Richard Pipes
98. The Idea of History, R. G. Collingwood
99. The Last Lion, William Manchester
Last Lion: William Spencer Churchill: Vol. 1
Visions of Glory,
1874-1932
Last Lion: William Spencer Churchill: Vol. 2
Alone, 1932-1940
100. The Starr Report, Kenneth W. Starr
Hart: "A study in human depravity."
National Review
215 Lexington Avenue
New York, New York 10016
(212) 679 7330
Subject: National Review's 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the Century
VV's magnificient Speak, Memory! is rated # 90 on this list. This appears
in 3 May 1999 issue.
[Alphonse Vinh]
THE 100 BEST NON-FICTION
BOOKS OF THE CENTURY
Earlier this year, Random House announced that it
would release a list of the 100 best non-fiction
books
of the century. The publisher had enjoyed success
(and controversy) with its 100 best novels; now it
would do this. Here at National Review, we decided
to get a jump on them by forming our own panel and
offering our own list. Under the leadership of our
reporter John J. Miller, we have done so. We have
used a methodology that approaches the scientific.
But-certainly beyond, say, the first 40 books-the
fact
of the books' presence on the list is far more
important than their rankings. We offer a comment
from a panelist after many of the books; but the
panel overall, not the individual quoted, is
responsible for the ranking. So, here is our list,
for
your enjoyment, mortification, and stimulation.
THE PANEL:
Richard Brookhiser, NR senior editor
David Brooks, senior editor of The Weekly Standard
Christopher Caldwell, senior writer at The Weekly
Standard
Robert Conquest, historian
David Gelernter, writer and computer scientist
George Gilder, writer
Mary Ann Glendon, professor at Harvard Law School
Jeffrey Hart, NR senior editor
Mark Helprin, novelist
Arthur Herman, author of The Idea of Decline in
Western History
John Keegan, military historian
Michael Kelly, editor of National Journal
Florence King, author of Confessions of a Failed
Southern Lady
Michael Lind, journalist and novelist
John Lukacs, historian
Adam Meyerson, vice president at the Heritage
Foundation
Richard John Neuhaus, editor-in-chief of First
Things
John O'Sullivan, NR editor-at-large
Richard Pipes, historian
Abigail Thernstrom, senior fellow at the Manhattan
Institute
Stephan Thernstrom, historian
James Q. Wilson, author of The Moral Sense.
If you would like to purchase one of these classic
books, simply click on the title and
you'll be taken to Amazon.com.
THE LIST:
1. The Second World War, Winston S. Churchill
Brookhiser: "The big story of the century, told by
its major hero."
Vol. 1, The Gathering Storm
Vol. 2, Their Finest Hour
Vol. 3, The Grand Alliance
Vol. 4, The Hinge of Fate
Vol. 5, Closing the Ring
Vol. 6, Triumph and Tragedy
2. The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr I.
Solzhenitsyn
Neuhaus: "Marked the absolute final turning point
beyond which nobody could
deny the evil of the Evil Empire."
3. Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell
Herman: "Orwell's masterpiece-far superior to
Animal Farm and 1984. No
education in the meaning of the 20th century is
complete without it."
4. The Road to Serfdom, F. A. von Hayek
Helprin: "Shatters the myth that the
totalitarianisms 'of the Left' and 'of the
Right' stem from differing impulses."
5. Collected Essays, George Orwell
King: "Every conservative's favorite liberal and
every liberal's favorite
conservative. This book has no enemies."
6. The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper
Herman: "The best work on political philosophy in
the 20th century. Exposes
totalitarianism's roots in Plato, Hegel, and
Marx."
7. The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis
Brookhiser: "How modern philosophies drain meaning
and the sacred from our
lives."
8. Revolt of the Masses, José Ortega y Gasset
Gilder: "Prophesied the 20th century's debauchery
of democracy and science,
the barbarism of the specialist, and the
inevitable fatuity of public opinion.
Explained the genius of capitalist elites."
9. The Constitution of Liberty, F. A. von Hayek
O'Sullivan: "A great re-statement for this century
of classical liberalism by its
greatest modern exponent."
10. Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman
11. Modern Times, Paul Johnson
Herman: "Huge impact outside the academy, dreaded
and ignored inside it."
12. Rationalism in Politics, Michael Oakeshott
Herman: "Oakeshott is the 20th century's Edmund
Burke."
13. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Joseph
A. Schumpeter
Caldwell: "Locus classicus for the observation
that democratic capitalism
undermines itself through its very success."
14. Economy and Society, Max Weber
Lind: "Weber made permanent contributions to the
understanding of society
with his discussions of comparative religion,
bureaucracy, charisma, and the
distinctions among status, class, and party."
15. The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt
Caldwell: "Through Nazism and Stalinism, looks at
almost every pernicious
trend in the last century's politics with stunning
subtlety."
16. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Rebecca West
Kelly: "For its writing, not for its historical
accuracy."
17. Sociobiology, Edward O. Wilson
Lind: "Darwin put humanity in its proper place in
the animal kingdom. Wilson
put human society there, too."
18. Centissimus Annus, Pope John Paul II
19. The Pursuit of the Millennium, Norman Cohn
Neuhaus: "The authoritative refutation of
utopianism of the left, right, and
points undetermined."
20. The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank
Helprin: "An innocent's account of the greatest
evil imaginable. The most
powerful book of the century. Others may not
agree. No matter, I cast my lot
with this child."
Caldwell: "If one didn't know her fate, one might
read it as the reflections of any
girl. That one does know her fate makes this as
close to a holy book as the
century produced."
21. The Great Terror, Robert Conquest
Herman: "Documented for the first time the real
record of Stalinism in the
Soviet Union. A genuine monument of historical
research and reconstruction, a
true epic of evil."
22. Chronicles of Wasted Time, Malcolm Muggeridge
Gilder: "The best autobiography, Christian
confession, and historic meditation
of the century."
23. Relativity, Albert Einstein
Lind: "The most important physicist since Newton."
24. Witness, Whittaker Chambers
Caldwell: "Confession, history, potboiler-by a man
who writes like the literary
giant we would know him as, had not Communism got
him first."
25. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,
Thomas S. Kuhn
26. Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis
Neuhaus: "The most influential book of the most
influential Christian apologist
of the century."
27. The Quest for Community, Robert Nisbet
28. Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed.
Helprin: "The infinite riches of the world,
presented with elegance, confidence,
and economy."
29. Up in the Old Hotel, Joseph Mitchell
30. The Everlasting Man, G. K. Chesterton
Lukacs: "A great carillonade of Christian
verities."
31. Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton
O'Sullivan: "How to look at the Christian
tradition with fresh eyes."
32. The Liberal Imagination, Lionel Trilling
Hart: "The popular form of liberalism tends to
simplify and caricature when it
attempts moral aspiration-that is, it tends to
'Stalinism.'"
33. The Double Helix, James D. Watson
Herman: "Deeply hated by feminists because Watson
dares to suggest that the
male-female distinction originated in nature, in
the DNA code itself."
34. The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Richard
Phillips Feynman
Gelernter: "Outside of art (or maybe not), physics
is mankind's most beautiful
achievement; these three volumes are probably the
most beautiful ever written
about physics."
35. Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers,
Tom Wolfe
O'Sullivan: "Wolfe is our Juvenal."
36. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, Albert
Camus
37. The Unheavenly City, Edward C. Banfield
Neuhaus: "The volume that began the debunking of
New Deal socialism and its
public-policy consequences."
38. The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud
39. The Death and Life of Great American Cities,
Jane Jacobs
40. The End of History and the Last Man, Francis
Fukuyama
41. Joy of Cooking, Irma S. Rombauer, Marion
Rombauer Becker,
and Ethan Becker
42. The Age of Reform, Richard Hofstadter
Herman: "The single best book on American history
in this century, bar none."
43. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and
Money, John
Maynard Keynes
Hart: "Influential in suggesting that the business
cycle can be modified by
government investment and manipulation of tax
rates."
44. God & Man at Yale, William F. Buckley Jr.
Gilder: "Still correct and prophetic. It defines
the conservative revolt against
socialism and atheism on campus and in the
culture, and reconciles the alleged
conflict between capitalist and religious
conservatives."
45. Selected Essays, T. S. Eliot
Hart: "Shaped the literary taste of the
mid-century."
46. Ideas Have Consequences, Richard M. Weaver
47. The Economy of Cities, Jane Jacobs
48. The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom
49. Ethnic America, Thomas Sowell
50. An American Dilemma, Gunnar Myrdal
An American Dilemma, Vol. 1
An American Dilemma, Vol. 2
51. Three Case Histories, Sigmund Freud
Gelernter: "Beyond question Freud is history's
most important philosopher of
the mind, and he ranks alongside Eliot as the
century's greatest literary critic.
Modern intellectual life (left, right, and
in-between) would be unthinkable
without him."
52. The Struggle for Europe, Chester Wilmot
53. Main Currents in American Thought, Vernon
Louis Parrington
King: "An immensely readable history of ideas and
men. (Skip the fragmentary
third volume-he died before finishing it.)"
54. The Waning of the Middle Ages, Johann Huzinga
Lukacs: "Probably the finest historian who lived
in this century. "
55. Systematic Theology, Wolfhart Pannenberg
Neuhaus: "The best summary and reflection on
Christianity's encounter with the
Enlightenment project."
Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
Systematic Theology, Vol. 2
Systematic Theology, Vol. 3
56. The Campaign of the Marne, Sewell Tyng
Keegan: "A forgotten American's masterly account
of the First World War in the
West."
57. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig
Wittgenstein
Hart: "A terse summation of the analytic method of
the analytic school in
philosophy, and a heroic leap beyond it."
58. Insight: A Study of Human Understanding,
Bernard Lonergan
Glendon: "The Thomas Aquinas of the 20th century."
59. Being and Time, Martin Heidegger
Hart: "A seminal thinker, notwithstanding his
disgraceful error of equating
National Socialism with the experience of
'Being.'"
60. Disraeli, Robert Blake
Keegan: "Political biography as it should be
written."
61. Democracy and Leadership, Irving Babbitt
King: "A conservative literary critic describes
what happens when
humanitarianism over takes humanism."
62. The Elements of Style, William Strunk & E. B.
White
A. Thernstrom: "If only every writer would
remember just one of Strunk &
White's wonderful injunctions: 'Omit needless
words.' Omit needless words."
63. The Machiavellians, James Burnham
O'Sullivan: "Burnham is the greatest political
analyst of our century and this is
his best book."
64. Reflections of a Russian Statesman, Konstantin
P.
Pobedonostsev
King: "The 'culture war' as seen by the tutor to
the last two czars. A Russian Pat
Buchanan."
65. The Hedgehog and the Fox, Isaiah Berlin
66. Roll, Jordan, Roll, Eugene D. Genovese
Neuhaus: "The best account of American slavery and
the moral and cultural
forces that undid it."
67. The ABC of Reading, Ezra Pound
Brookhiser: "An epitome of the aging aesthetic
movement that will be forever
known as modernism."
68. The Second World War, John Keegan
Hart: "A masterly history in a single volume."
69. The Making of Homeric Verse, Milman Parry
Lind: "Genuine discoveries in literary study are
rare. Parry's discovery of the
oral formulaic basis of the Homeric epics, the
founding texts of Western
literature, was one of them."
70. The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling, Angus
Wilson
Keegan: "A life of a great author told through the
transmutation of his
experience into fictional form."
71. Scrutiny, F. R. Leavis
Hart: "Enormously important in education,
especially in England. Leavis
understood what one kind of 'living English' is."
72. The Edge of the Sword, Charles de Gaulle
Brookhiser: "A lesser figure than Churchill, but
more philosophical (and hence,
more problematic)."
73. R. E. Lee, Douglas Southall Freeman
Conquest: "The finest work on the Civil War."
74. Bureaucracy, Ludwig von Mises
75. The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton
Neuhaus: "A classic conversion story of a modern
urban sophisticate."
76. Balzac, Stefan Zweig
King: "On the joys of working one's self to death.
The chapter 'Black Coffee' is a
masterpiece of imaginative reconstruction."
77. The Good Society, Walter Lippmann
Gilder: "Written during the Great Depression. A
corruscating defense of the
morality of capitalism."
78. Silent Spring, Rachel Carson
Lind: "For all the excesses of the environmental
movement, the realization that
human technology can permanently damage the
earth's environment marked a
great advance in civilization. Carson's book, more
than any other, publicized this
message."
79. The Christian Tradition, Jaroslav Pelikan
Neuhaus: "The century's most comprehensive account
of Christian teaching
from the second century on."
80. Strange Defeat, Marc Bloch
Herman: "A great historian's personal account of
the fall of France in 1940."
81. Looking Back, Norman Douglas
Conquest: "Fascinating memoirs of a remarkable
writer."
82. Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres, Henry Adams
83. Poetry and the Age, Randall Jarrell
Caldwell: "The book for showing how 20th- century
poets think, what their
poetry does, and why it matters."
84. Love in the Western World, Denis de Rougemont
Brookhiser: "What has become of eros over the last
seven centuries."
85. The Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk
86. Wealth and Poverty, George Gilder
87. Battle Cry of Freedom, James M. McPherson
88. Henry James, Leon Edel
King: "All the James you want without having to
read him."
89. Essays of E. B. White, E. B. White
Gelernter: "White is the apotheosis of the
American liberal now spurned and
detested by the Left (and the cultural
mainstream). His mesmerized devotion to
the objects of his affection-his family, the
female sex, his farm, the English
language, Manhattan, the sea, America, Maine, and
freedom, in descending
order-is movingly absolute."
90. Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov
91. The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe
92. Darwin's Black Box, Michael J. Behe
Gilder: "Overthrows Darwin at the end of the 20th
century in the same way that
quantum theory overthrew Newton at the beginning."
93. The Civil War, Shelby Foote
94. The Way the World Works, Jude Wanniski
Gilder: "The best book on economics. Shows fatuity
of still-dominant
demand-side model, with its silly preoccupation
with accounting trivia, like the
federal budget and trade balance and savings
rates, in an economy with $40
trillion or so in assets that rise and fall weekly
by trillions."
95. To the Finland Station, Edmund Wilson
Herman: "The best single book on Karl Marx and
Marx's place in modern
history."
96. Civilisation, Kenneth Clark
97. The Russian Revolution, Richard Pipes
98. The Idea of History, R. G. Collingwood
99. The Last Lion, William Manchester
Last Lion: William Spencer Churchill: Vol. 1
Visions of Glory,
1874-1932
Last Lion: William Spencer Churchill: Vol. 2
Alone, 1932-1940
100. The Starr Report, Kenneth W. Starr
Hart: "A study in human depravity."
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