10 Books Every Conservative Must Read 1st (first) edition Text Only

by Benjamin Wiker

10 Books Every Conservative Must Read (10) by Wiker, Benjamin [Hardcover (2010)]

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, History, Audiobook, Government, Economics

Hardcover

First published May 24, 2010

About the author

Benjamin Wiker is a writer, teacher, lecturer, husband of one wife, and father of seven children. He has a Ph.D. in Theological Ethics from Vanderbilt University, an M.A. in Religion from Vanderbilt University, and a B.A. in Political Philosophy from Furman University. He has taught at Marquette University, St. Mary's University (MN), and Thomas Aquinas College, and is now a Professor of Political Science and Director of Human Life Studies at Franciscan University, and a Senior Fellow of Franciscan's Veritas Center.

Reviews

[Stan Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by a very bright Catholic academic so it is more about philosophic conservatism than about nuts and bolts political conservatism.
The ten are:
The Politics by Aristotle
Orthodoxy by Chesterton
The New Science of Politics by Voegelin
The Abolition of Man by CS Lewis
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Burke
Democracy in America by de Toqueville
The Federalist Papers
The anti-federalists
The Servile State by Bellock
The Road to Serfdom by von Hayek

Lord of the Rings is in the extra 4

Excellent book

[Fr. Ryan Humphries · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must-read for every serious thinker. The title is bad. Really bad. I hate the title! Conservatism is a misnomer in a lot of ways. Wiker's text and it's sister Ten Books That Screwed Up the World: And Five Others That Didn't Help are much like Chesterton's Heretics and Orthodoxy.

This text is a cogent, reasonable journey through history and literature which guides you through the foundational philosophy of government, family, society, economics and imagination of what Wiker calls conservatism. In fact, Wiker is describing the simple Catholic understanding of human nature and society.

The book is a master-stroke. I've read it now three times and can say that it will always have a special place on my bookshelf. Wiker's thought is clear without becoming stifling. His style is direct but respectful. He even does a good job of defining conservatism, liberalism, modernism, et al and keeping them clear throughout. I just wish he wouldn't have named the book in such an off-putting way. It's so much more than a defense of a political ideology.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very much about philosophical conservatism rather than specific modern-day political details. I greatly enjoyed that aspect of it, and I wish that many more people on both sides could read this.

Sometimes I got a bit lost, and information passed by in a blur, so I know I missed some things. I much preferred his chapters on the extra books not to miss, though I suppose that's because in those he describes stories instead of nonfiction.

One thing did strike me as odd: Wiker assumes that most/all conservatives are Christians, or must hold to a Judeo-Christian worldview of some kind in order to be a conservative. While I grant that conservative values spring from this worldview, what about those who want to cling to conservative values without mixing in religion of any kind? People can believe a smaller government is better, without believing that all mankind is inherently sinful because of the Biblical fall. It just seemed like this automatically-religious assumption would be off-putting for atheists who want to cling to conservatism without inherently practicing religion.

Earlier I read 10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn't Help.

The ten recommended books are:
Politics by Aristotle
Orthodoxy by Chesterton
The New Science of Politics by Voegelin
The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
The Federalist Papers
The Anti-Federalist Papers
The Servile State by Hilaire Bellock
The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich von Hayek

The extra four books not to miss are:
The Bible
The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

The one impostor book is:
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

[Ray · Rating 1 out of 5]

Books abour politics, or about religion tend to be judged based on the bias of the reader. A book might be considered "excellent" if it supports your personal persuasion, or "awful" if contrary to your beliefs. And that may have little to do with how well researched, or how well written the book might be. So I believe it's probably nearly impossible to objectively rate books on these subjects, but I'm really trying.

Try as I did, I just couldn't get into this book. I was hoping for a book which would convince me of the author's beliefs and the strengths of his arguements. Separating out the passages which one accepts on faith alone, I found many of the authors statements just weren't adequately supported, or got lost in the jargon. I thought the book was filled with too many generalizations and stereotypes which just don't stand on their own. I tried quitting the book about 25% into it, but saw that it was generally very highly regarded, so I continued until I got about 50% into the book. But at that point, I gave up. If you want to be convinced on the merits, you may not like the book, if you're looking for reinforcement of existing conservative perspectives, and can drink the cool-aid, you may well love the book.

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was far better than I expected.

Far from being just a list and short summary of such books that meet the title, or even a more in-depth exploration into them (both of which are still covered here), Wiker also provides a very clear-minded, balanced, honest and yet personable set of literary essays in which he analyses conservative (or "classical liberal") values and how they are represented, elaborated or denigrated in his chosen books. It is a book about other books that itself attains, in my opinion, the right to be called a book that every conservative should also read.

Some of the selections are predictable enough - The Federalist Papers, as well as the Anti-Federalist Papers (the latter being more in line with what a modern conservative would desire for their country's governmental system); Hayek's The Road to Serfdom and Tocqueville's Democracy in America. But then there were some more interesting, if still not entirely surprising choices such as C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man, Shakespeare's The Tempest (I am now desirous of giving that high school dread another, deeper look), Austen's Sense and Sensibility and Chesterton's Orthodoxy.

Clearly Wiker is a Christian (I saw another review that stated he is Catholic specifically, which would make a lot of sense for why he manages to not come across as a nutcase Evangelical of the Christian Right persuasion). And his faith clearly influences some of his choices and the way he interprets and appreciates them, as well as why he thoroughly denounces the conservative "imposter" Ayn Rand and her famous Atlas Shrugged.

[Erneilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

My late father was a conservative and during my growing up years we had long discussions about what he saw as the problems with our society, which he attributed largely to the liberalism starting with the late Depression era government beginning of FDR, continuing into my generation. Having read this book, I fully agree with Dad.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes you have to scout the opposition, and it's a good idea to have an open mind because sometimes their ideas are actually good. But there's nothing new in this book. Maybe that's part of the point - if you are conservative, it isn't supposed to be new, but where's the fun in that?

I have read material by all of the authors who Mr. Wiker discusses, though not always the particular works that he focuses on. I certainly respect Aristotle, Edmund Burke, de Tocqueville, the Federalist/Antifederalist Papers and even that arch free marketer, Fredrich Hayek. There are things to be learned from all of them, though not always, in my view, the lessons on conservatism that Mr. Wiker wants to pull out of them.

Taken as a whole, Mr. Wiker makes a decent argument for conservatism. He focuses on its most appealing characteristics - love of individual freedom, suspicion of top down government, compassion for others that starts with the family and the neighborhood. He only made me bristle when he consistently mischaracterized liberal philosophy. Still, to me he came off as a decent guy, somebody who I could do business with. If all Republicans were like Mr. Wiker and all Democrats were like me, I think that we could have a very good working government in which each of us would temper the views of the other and we could rule wisely. Too bad that won't be happening any time soon.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

10 Books Every Conservative Must Read: Plus Four Not to Miss and One Impostor by Benjamin Wiker was a book recommendation by my staunchly conservative Uncle Shane. I grew up hearing strong political discussions around the dinner table-- many revolving around those darn environmentalists out to take the fun out of everything. I actually found them quite exciting, because they caused such strong feelings, but they also usually ended in a good-natured laugh. But when I got older, went off to school, and started to form opinions of my own, they often didn't align with those of my family. I am admittedly an odd mix of contradictions. I'm gay Mormon in a mixed-orientation marriage. It took me a long wrestle to finally come to grips with my sexuality, because it seemed to conflict with my religious upbringing that I ardently would not give up. I now find myself what Richard Rohr calls living "on the edge of the inside", coming to appreciate the deep truths of your tradition, because you have felt what it feels like to be an outsider.

To move away from all the "David Copperfield kind of crap," my uncle is a deeply principled conservative and has very well thought-out opinions. When I was graduating from high school, he got me a subscription to the National Review for my birthday. Some of the articles I found very insightful, but even then, I found much that didn't sit right with me. They had one section The Week in every issue that seemed to be a tirade of everything wrong those darn liberals were up to: His stimulus spend-a-palooza having failed, spectacularly, President Obama convened a "job summit"..., Obama's self-regarding politicking knows neither time nor place..., etc. etc. Perhaps I just wasn't cut out for politics, if it just came down to a bunch of name-calling. When I came back to Utah for Christmas break after first coming out, I tried to make a peace offering by checking out a book from the library, Conservativsm: An Anthology of Social and Political Thought from David Hume to the Present by Jerry Z. Muller. And I was hooked! I found some meat to conservatism that I had never found before. It was a way of viewing the world, with principles and a guiding philosophy. It was had high regard for the common sense in man, while accepting the limits of human reason and the reality of sin and vice. It respected existing institutions-- regardless of type-- because they are built on the wisdom of prior generations. It distrusted theories, especially theories that would remake the world in their own image. Politics actually didn't come up at all, as I think my family was treading carefully around the elephant in the room, which I appreciated. But my uncle did recommend 10 Books Every Conservative Must Read, and I finally got around to reading it.

10 Books by the title sounds only slightly less pretentious than its predecessor 10 Books that Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn't Help. But after I began reading it, I found it wasn't a diatribe against the evils of liberalism, a swan song of nostalgia, or a love letter to free markets. Instead, its thesis is that conservatism has a strong and respectable intellectual pedigree, and that it isn't merely a reaction to innovation:

We live in a culture that is largely defined by liberalism, but there is a swelling conservative reaction. Unfortunately, while that reaction is welcome, it is too often simply a reaction rather than a well thought-out and effective response deeply informed by truly conservative principles. It is my hope that this book can help carry out a conservative renaissance, a deep revolution, so that the conservative zeal animating so many souls can have a lasting and deep effect.

This was a lot different in tone that what I think of representing the conservative voice on social media. To me, conservatism was represented by Breitbart News declaring Obama a Muslim, Milo Yiannopoulos riling up college campuses, Alex Jones announcing he's prepared to eat his neighbors, "Lock Her Up" memes and conspiracy theories of Hilary Clinton's murdering of political opponents. Is this truly conservatism?

Wiker argues otherwise. He organizes his book into four parts: In Part I he seeks to define conservative principles (The Politics by Aristotle, Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton, The New Science of Politics by Eric Voegelin, and The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis) including the importance of self-government, the cultivation of virtue, and the reality of vice. These are truly conservative principles, not free markets or tradition for tradition's sake. This is a conservatism I can truly get behind. I was pleasantly surprised to find both Chesterton and Lewis present in his books defining the conservative tradition. I stumbled upon both Chesterton and Lewis after returning from my mission, and I read everything I could get my hands on by both authors. To me, they represented a Christian creativity I had never encountered before, not limiting themselves to religious topics, but also bringing a faith alive that I had never seen fully animated before. And I didn't think of them as "conservative" because to me, they were anything but-- conservative religion was a dead religion, written in stone that couldn't be questioned or challenged, the dead letter of the law. But perhaps it was always there, and I just hadn't found it yet.

In Part II, Wiker argues that while the American experiment was revolutionary, it was grounded in conservative principles (Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke, Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, The Federalist Papers, and The Anti-Federalist Papers). Isn't it interesting that Wiker claims both Federalist and Anti-Federalist positions as conservative? Perhaps because we have largely forgotten what the Founding Fathers were arguing about, and the conservative position is that both are worth preserving.

In Part III, Wiker introduces the conservative approach to economics (The Servile State by Hilaire Belloc and The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek). I was honestly surprised, because the books he selects don't necessarily enshrine laissez faire economic policies. Usually, I associate conservative economic positions as free markets solve all problems, tax is theft, and regulation is evil. Instead, he establishes the ideal economy as a distributed economy, not concentrated in the hands of the few. To me, this sounds like this outcome overlaps strongly with many labelled liberal today. They may disagree on the means, but the diagnosis is very similar: concentrated power in the form of wealth is an evil.

In Part IV, Wiker explores what he calls the conservative imagination (The Tempest by William Shakespeare, Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, and The Jerusalem Bible). Wiker argues that conservative books have a moral order to which we must align ourselves. I had never thought to read Lord of the Rings in this way, and perhaps some would be upset to have a conservative claim it, and with it perhaps all of fantasy! Good versus evil isn't necessarily a purely conservative trope, no? But it is a fascinating interpretation all the same.

In all of these points, Wiker develops a compelling world view, and one almost completely different from what I traditionally associate with the Republican embodiment of conservatism today. I wanted to engage Wiker with a few critiques of conservative viewpoints, how he addresses them, and what I found still needed answers.

Why Liberals Win The Culture Wars Even When They Lose Elections

The first comes from Stephen Prothero's book Why Liberals Win the Culture Wars. In it, he essentially addresses conservatism as a response to changing cultural norms:

Many have attempted to reduce modern conservatism to anti-intellectualism, but modern conservatism has at its heart an idea. That idea is not states' rights or individual liberty or free markets or limited government or federalism, however. Over the course of U.S. history, conservatives have argued for and against all these principles. The "big idea" behind modern convservatism is this: a form of culture is passing away and it is worth fighting to revive it. What activates this idea, transforming it into action, is a feeling. This feeling is akin to nsotalgia, but it runs deeper and is more fierce.

Prothero then goes on to explain five critical tipping points throughout U.S. history that cultural conservatives first defended a cultural norm and eventually lost. Each of them are typically about keeping a certain group out of the mainstream culture of America. These 5 are (1) Jeffersonian Deism, (2) Catholics, (3) Mormons, (4) Prohibition, and (5) contemporary culture wars such as race and sexual orientation.

This is one I find unsettling for a number of reasons. First off, how is conservatism meant to survive in a pluralistic society? Wiker is clear that conservatism and Christianity are not the same-- but this brand of conservatism in America seems insistent on playing by its rules. Is conservatism going to be defined by excluding certain groups from participating in the exchange of ideas? Prothero's argument hit so close to home for me because his key example of Latter-Day Saints: we were once the ire of cultural conservatives, excluded from the mainstream because we were seen as threatening conservative values. But the same could be said of Catholics, Asians, Latinos, Muslims-- that are seem as a threat to white Protestant America. On what set of values can we build a conservative worldview, if we don't share a religion and a culture? If American conservatism is limited to white Protestant America, I think we are already in its waning days, and we would do well to confront these questions. I think there is value in a conservative worldview, and I think the seeds of it are already present in conservative thought. Conservatives recognize the value of traditions across cultures, even seeing them as defenders of culture against the homogenizing effects of globalization. We need to better articulate a response and form a united front.

How Democracies Die

The second critique of American conservatism today I found in How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsy. The book examines across cultures how decaying political norms result in dictatorships and loss of freedom in what used to be democracies. And this doesn't necessarily happen with coups or guns or hostile takeovers. It can all happen with a veneer of legitimacy. Its writing is very timely. The writers, at times implicitly, at other times explicitly, voice concerns about the direction of the Trump presidency. It was this passage that was a wake-up call:

Under unified government, where legislative and judicial institutions are in the hands of the president's party, the risk is not confrontation but abdication. If partisan animosity prevails over mutual toleration, those in control of congress may prioritize defense of the president over the performance of their constitutional duties. In an effort to stave off opposition victory, they may abandon their oversight role, enabling the president to get away with abusive, illegal, and even authoritarian acts. Such a transformation from watchdog into lapdog can be an important enabler of authoritarian rule.

Has the Republican party become Trump's lapdog? What does the Republican party even stand for at this point? Politics has been reduced to ensuring that Republicans are in power, rather than standing for any firm principles. Wiker's argument that the conservative stance is self-government and local government are the most important fall on deaf ears. Where is this in the Republican Party:

The inhabitant is attached to his township because it is strong and independent; he is interested in it because he cooperates in directing it; he loves it because he has nothing to complain of in his lot; he places his ambition and his future in it; he mingles in each of the incidents of township life: in this restricted sphere that is within his reach he tries to govern society; he habituates himself to the forms without which freedom proceeds only through revolutions, permeates himself with their spirit, gets a taste for order, understands the harmony of powers, and finally assembles clear and practical ideas on the nature and the duties as well as the extent of his rights.

In the end, I strongly identify with the vision of conservatism that Wiker paints here, but I don't think the current embodiment of the Republican Party lives up to this tradition.

[Kelhi Herring · Rating 5 out of 5]

Based on the title, I didn’t think I’d like it at all. But I’m so close to five stars, that I’ve got to give it five stars. The author gives thorough and insightful summaries of his chosen books. I learned a lot. Interestingly, many of his observations about conservatism vs liberalism were consistent with observations made by Trueman in The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. There’s a lot of good stuff to think on and talk about here! As to his part on the Bible, which has some problematic bits: what he needs here is a Reformed redemptive historical hermeneutic as a foundation for theology and piety. (And yeah, I know he’s a Roman Catholic.)

I also really loved the biographical portions of the book! People who write books are also PEOPLE, and it adds depth to their books and beliefs when we know their lives. (Speaking of which: I really, really wish I had known all this about Ayn Rand when I read her novels way back when.)

Also appreciated that he didn’t conflate Christianity and conservatism.

[Holla Gonzalez · Rating 1 out of 5]

This author wrote “10 books that screwed up the world”... that should’ve been the title of this tripe.

[Don · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a GREAT book and worth 5 stars. I read Wiker’s previous book Ten Books that Screwed Up the World, and I looked forward to any similar work. I was not disappointed. Several times while reading I thought to myself, “I’m loving this!”

Wiker provides an excellent introduction to help us understand how the terms conservative and liberal have changed over the centuries, lest we jump to the mistaken assumption that yesterday’s liberal is also today’s liberal. (They are not.)

He outlines that he will cover works that provide the foundation of what we call “conservative principles” today. His selection of books achieve this purpose wonderfully. After the first 3 or 4 books, you begin to be able to have the feel of conservatism as a bottom-up, fundamental, and common-sense approach to life... as opposed to liberalism’s top-down Utopian progress toward some dreamy super-society. I could never define conservatism well, but this book made it clear.

I also enjoyed that Wiker not only reviewed each book, but provided a brief biography of each author.

His selection of 4 others are definitely worth noting, and I plan to follow up with reading at least one I missed. He is also correct about the impostor Atlas Shrugged, and provided insight into how closely the book’s deceptive views are linked to the miserable, deplorable life of its author Ayn Rand.

I enjoyed this one so much I will definitely read it again. If you want to investigate your own views about conservatism then consider this book to help you. If you label yourself a liberal, then this book will help you to understand your conservative friends better.

[Troy Lizenby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found this gem in the local library and am confounded why I have never heard of it. The author masterfully surveys the landscape of classical conservatism by explicating and applying the writings of conservative authors from Aristotle to Voegelin, from Tocqueville to Belloc, from Burke to Hayek, from the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers to C. L. Lewis and Tolkien. He gives an admirable synopsis of the message of the Bible, and commends Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Jane Austin’s Sense and Sensibility. Through the analyses of these works, Wiker reveals the roots of conservatism as the acknowledgement of a received order of things that provides a right view of man and the world. This book serves as a needed corrective to misunderstandings of the nature and content of conservatism today.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main ten books he covers:
The Politics by Aristotle
Orthodoxy by Chesterton
The New Science of Politics by Voegelin
The Abolition of Man by CS Lewis
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Burke
Democracy in America by de Toqueville
The Federalist Papers
The anti-federalists
The Servile State by Bellock
The Road to Serfdom by von Hayek

Extras are:
The Tempest
Sense and Sensibility
Lord of the Rings
The Jerusalem Bible

The impostor book:
Atlas Shrugged

[Russell Hayes · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a decent survey of conservative literature and philosophy, but didn't live up to the author's first book, "Ten books that screwed up the world." Two unfortunately named books, but they both put forward a strong conservative worldview and offer cogent counters to the prevailing left wing materialists, relativists, Marxists, etc.

[David West · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this one. The books range from Aristotle to CS Lewis to Jane Austen. Conservatism is explained and defended. Wiker gives a short biography of each author and then a works through a book they wrote to illustrate conservative principles.

[Sam Dahl · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought it was boring. Really dry.

[عدنان العبار · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are two types of conservatives: Thinkers like Thomas Sowell, Friedrich Hayek, and to some degree, C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton, and then there are conservatives like Robert Bork, William F. Buckley Jr., Michael Knowles, and many other conservatives who do not know exactly what they are trying to conserve. The latter are the irksome and boring type which just want to hammer the idiocy of the leftists while having no problem in using some of their tactics OR their policies. The former are those who try to understand what they are trying to conserve to distill it.

This book is dedicated to the conservatives of the second kind. Though it offers some really good books, it recommends as well books like The Federalist Papers and tries to make excuses for people like Hamilton who tried to erode the US constitution and create an American royal class.

I didn't like this book much, and save for some really good books recommended which I have already read: Austin's Sense and Sensibility, Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, and Shakespeare's The Tempest. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone since such books really depend on the books they recommend, and I didn't like three of the choices.

[Warren]

Many would be readers today won’t make it past the title of this book. But such titles are specifically designed to rally a good portion of potential buyers and it is a given that roughly half of the populous won’t pick it up. The 10 books are really political philosophy books and they don’t really even get into the specific hot button issues of our day. I would think that a few of these books should be recommended to all Americans or even anyone interested in philosophy but to focus on that too much would really be to obsess on the title of the book and miss the contents.

So why read this book? Why not just read the ten books themselves? Well, he did a surprisingly good job of adding value, of telling us some things that you may not pick up in the books themselves. One of the things that stood out was how he spoke about the Bible as a book to be read not merely for it’s lessons but also as a story cover to cover. He also had a hard hitting critique of Ayn Rand but I suppose there’s no shortage or criticism’s of Rand.

[Scott Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars because:

1. The analysis of The Tempest was life-changing for me.
2. The analysis of Ayn Rand was accurate.
3. Never got The Abolition of Man like I did after this analysis.
4. Never heard of Eric Voegelin before. Scary stuff.
5. Transhumanism is really at the base of Gnosticism and modern liberalism. Not a weird add-on.
6. I will read the Jerusalem Bible now. I was a King James guy until I read this. Maybe I will change, maybe I won't. We will see.

I would have given this 4 stars, had it not been for the above, because:

1. I find Federalism and Anti-Federalism irrelevant. The Marxists have won. The stupid people, materialists, the Bolsheviks and Jacobins and Burning Men freaks have won. People who hate the permanent things are mumming in the carnival filled streets while the better part of Western Civ- and basic infrastructure required for any civilization to operate peacefully- is being dismantled. Talk of the original Founders ideas seem very far away and of little importance now.

[John Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tolkien as a republican? Well, I did like the story and I am conservative based on the author's definition, so maybe?!? I did like this book and it does tug at the heartstrings of my republican upbringing... Of the recommended books, I have read all but 2. Most are worth reading whether republican, democrat, socialist or alien, they are good, well-written and will teach you something useful today or something that will help you understand the past or both. My concern with the premiss is, if conservatism is created by family, village, town, county, state, what happens when geography no longer matters? With the "technology" of today (not to mention the technology of the future), villages & tribes may coalesce electronically instead of geographically. I have a hard time wrapping my head around how the conservative principles make that transition? Network affect anyone?

[Asderathos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes an over-analysis of an author does little to inform the actual meaning of the work, while leaving a sour taste in your mouth. So it was with the parts herein on Ayn Rand, whose slant I grasped from the works themselves, without the tawdry gossip & lazyboy psychoanalysis.
I should hate someone to not get as much out of Rand's works because they were overtly prejudiced against the author. The author's ideas being available in the books themselves to be taken up or left as in a salad bar, as one likes, without the act of a critic thrusting a photograph of a man sneezing into your head.
Those criticisms themselves may be fair, in and of themselves, as criticisms of the author, but I find them somewhat unfair to prospective readers.

[Brett's Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Wiker give a quick survey of the major works that underpin conservatism and a must-read for every fiscal or social conservative; especially in a time when the very definition of what it means to be a conservative is being challenged. Of course, all the giants are represented here Burke and Tocqueville; however, its the chapter on the Ayn Rand that I find the most satisfying. Objectivism is definitely not a conservative movement and Dr. Wiker exposes Rand's selfish and self destructive philosophy for what it is.

[Page · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed 10 Books that Screwed up the World. Even the parts I disagreed with taught me something. Even when I didn't exactly understand a concept, I wasn't bored; in fact I was interested in learning more. I can't say the same about this volume. It was dry in the extreme. The parts I didn't understand put me to sleep. It wasn't a total loss; the biographical portions were rather interesting.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Friedrich Hayek - The Road to Serfdom
The Federalist Papers
The Anti-Federalists Papers
Alexis de Tocqueville - Democracy in America, which foresaw the modern liberal state, politicians like Obama, and the long-term result: "men without chests," borrowing a phrase from . . .
C.S. Lewis - The Abolition of Man
Aristotle - Politics
Austen - Sense & Sensibility
Chesterton, Belloc, and J. R. R. Tolkien
Not the atheist, Ayn Rand!

[Matt Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stumbled across this on Audible since it’s included with a membership, and I’m glad I did. This is an excellent book for any Christian interested in culture or politics, and highly readable, clearly written for the average thoughtful reader rather than for an academic audience. It’s titled “10 books to read” but is more of a “guide to a conservative worldview, using 10 conservative authors/books as conversation partners.”

[Amber · Rating 2 out of 5]

3.5 stars for the interesting bits of history and biographical information of the authors of the books he highlighted.
-5 for his awful distinction between conservatives and liberals. I had wanted to know more about this author as a result of reading the first book, but now - please let me know less.

[Will Atkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a fan. First, it’s a slog. Part 1 may as well be called political philosophy to put you to sleep. Part 2 was decent, but only because I’d studied most of the writings in some detail previously, so I could more easily follow the logic. Part 3 was a stretch. Really, the Lord of the Rings is a conservative must read? Pride and Prejudice?

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Politics by Aristotle
Orthodoxy by Chesterton
The New Science of Politics by Voegelin
The Abolition of Man by CS Lewis
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Burke
Democracy in America by de Toqueville
The Federalist Papers
The Antifederalists
The Servile State by Bellock
The Road to Serfdom by von Hayek

[Mark Fekry · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a great introductory to Conservatism and modern Conservative thinking. It sets out a good path for knowledge that is important to obtain in order to gain a better understanding of modern day politics.

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly broader than politics, Wiker includes chapters on Belloc, Austen, Tolkien, and Shakespeare. He exposes Ayn Rand's philosophy of selfishness that ruined her and many of her devotees' lives. Aside from praise for the LOTR movies, really solid stuff.