As the summer sun beckons, conservative readers can dive into a thought-provoking array of literature that reflects our values and interests. This curated reading list from the ALM Staff offers a blend of timeless classics and contemporary works spanning politics, philosophy, history, and fiction. From foundational texts by conservative thinkers to insightful analyses of current issues, these books provide intellectual nourishment and stimulate constructive dialogue. Whether exploring the principles of limited government, free markets, or traditional values, this selection promises to engage, inspire, and enrich the minds of conservative readers throughout the summer months.
We've included links to find each book on Amazon, and included a summary from each of their Amazon pages. Happy reading!
The Fastest Tortoise: Winning in Industries I Knew Nothing About―A Life Spent Figuring It Out - Ken Hersh
Life lessons from an investor who forged his own path to success. Through their entertaining conversations, Ken Hersh and his interviewer, best-selling author Steve Fiffer, recount Ken’s improbable life journey, both personally and professionally. And what a journey it has been! Knowing nothing about the energy industry, Ken ventured in and ultimately helped pioneer an investment methodology that built one of the country’s most successful private investment firms and has been copied by dozens of firms to become the dominant means by which capital flows into the domestic energy industry.
Buy it on Amazon here.
The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy - Adam Tooze
An extraordinary mythology has grown up around the Third Reich that hovers over political and moral debate even today. Adam Tooze's controversial book challenges the conventional economic interpretations of that period to explore how Hitler's surprisingly prescient vision - ultimately hindered by Germany's limited resources and his own racial ideology - was to create a German super-state to dominate Europe and compete with what he saw as America's overwhelming power in a soon-to-be globalized world.
Buy it on Amazon here.
For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War - James McPherson
McPherson draws on more than 25,000 letters and nearly 250 private diaries from men on both sides. Civil War soldiers were among the most literate soldiers in history, and most of them wrote home frequently, as it was the only way for them to keep in touch with homes that many of them had left for the first time in their lives. Significantly, their letters were also uncensored by military authorities, and are uniquely frank in their criticism and detailed in their reports of marches and battles, relations between officers and men, political debates, and morale. For Cause and Comrades lets these soldiers tell their own stories in their own words to create an account that is both deeply moving and far truer than most books on war.
Buy it on Amazon here.
Animal Farm - George Orwell
George Orwell's classic satire of the Russian Revolution is an intimate part of our contemporary culture, quoted so often that we tend to forget who wrote the original words. It is an account of the bold struggle that transforms Mr. Jones' Manor Farm into Animal Farm, a wholly democratic society built on the credo that All Animals Are Created Equal. Out of their cleverness, the pigs Napoleon, Squealer, and Snowball emerge as leaders of the new community in a subtle evolution that bears an insidious familiarity. The climax is the brutal betrayal of the faithful horse Boxer, when totalitarian rule is re-established with the bloodstained postscript to the founding slogan: But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.
Buy it on Amazon here.
The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great
As a society, we are forgetting that almost everything great that has ever happened in history happened because of people who believed in both Judeo-Christian values and in the Greek-born power of reason. In The Right Side of History, Shapiro sprints through more than 3,500 years, dozens of philosophers, and the thicket of modern politics to show how our freedoms are built upon the twin notions that every human being is made in God’s image and that human beings were created with reason capable of exploring God’s world.
Buy it on Amazon here.
Raising Conservative Kids in a Woke City: Teaching Historical, Economic, and Biological Truth in a World of Lies - Stacy Manning, Katy Faust
In Raising Conservative Kids in a Woke City, two moms living in the bluest of cities offer practical guidance, parenting strategies, and humorous commentary to help parents immunize their children against Woke infection. In whichever zip code or tax bracket you dwell, there’s hope for parents who seek to indoctrinate their kids into conservatism—that is, kids who understand historical, economic, and biological reality. This book coaches parents in the how, when, and who of teaching children to think about the world rightly. The authors identify principles and processes that walk the line between protection and exposure, sheltering and equipping. They also share real-life stories of kids who have effectively pushed back against aggressive adults, stood against the crowd, and won conservative converts. If two moms sending their kids to public school in Seattle can raise conservative kids, you can too.
Buy it on Amazon here.
The Presidential Rhetoric of Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, and Calvin Coolidge: The Centennial of the Modern American Presidency - Ben Voth
In this book, Ben Voth argues that the centennial of the modern presidency embodied in the rhetoric of presidents Wilson, Harding and Coolidge provides an opportunity to re-examine our conventional understanding of U.S. presidents and presidential rankings. In particular, this book focuses on Wilson, Harding, and Coolidge’s rhetoric surrounding women’s suffrage and the political treatment of Black Americans. Voth demonstrates that ideological considerations elevated Wilson too high in presidential rankings and sabotaged Harding to an unwarranted ethical floor. Scholars of communication, rhetoric, and American history will find this book of particular interest.
Buy on Amazon here.
The Conscience of a Conservative - Barry Goldwater
The Conscience of a Conservative reignited the American conservative movement and made Barry Goldwater a political star. It influenced countless conservatives in the United States, and helped lay the foundation for the Reagan Revolution in 1980. It covers topics such as education, labor unions and policies, civil rights, agricultural policy and farm subsidies, social welfare programs, and income taxation. This significant book lays out the conservative position both politically and economically that would come to dominate the Conservative Movement in American.
Buy it on Amazon here.
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