Whiser09 said:

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The storm before the storm
By Mike Duncan

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Just listen to the podcast. EXACT same thing. I bought his book just to support him. This was before patreon.

Better version is:

Cataclysm 90bc (Book)
Death Throes of the Republic (Podcast)

Zobel said:

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If you really want to understand history and politics, read what the founding fathers wrote...which will also have you reading a similar book list to what every major historical political figure in the west would have read as well.

Herodotus' Histories
Aristotle's Politics
Plutarch's Lives
Plato's Republic
Julius Caesar's Campaigns
Arrian's Campaigns of Alexander
Xenophon's Anabasis

Also..

The Prince by Machiavelli
Discourses Concerning Government by Algernon Sydney
Locke's Second Treatise

Then...(these are not on the founding fathers list, but are necessary to understand the 20th century)
The Road to Serfdom by FA Hayek
The History of Money and Credit by von Mises

As well as..
The Bible
Pilgrim's Progress



If you make your way through that list you will have a functional understanding of history, politics, economics, the west, and human nature in a way that very few do.

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The Anabasis is my favorite book of all time by far.

"March of the 10,000" for those heathens that don't know it by that name.

CStewTAMU said:

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I recommend Thomas Sowell. I've read several of his booksVision of the Anointed has been my favorite so far.

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Same here.

A Parliament of W_h_0_r_e_s
P.J. O'Rouke

Satire that will allow you to understand politicians, their egos, and lust for recognition.

Thanks to TxAgas for protecting our tender eyes from book titles…..

Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts

The Last Lion: WInston Spencer Churchill, Defender of the Realm by William Manchester - I would also recommend American Caesar by the same author.

I would agree completely. I really enjoyed the podcast. Revolutions is another good series he does. Particularly the French Revolution.

How Should We Then Live? by the late Francis Schaeffer.

We are living Dr. Shaeffer's predictions today. Amazon link.

Quote:

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...Francis A. Schaeffer long pondered the fate of declining Western culture. Profoundly aware of the similarities modern culture shares with societies that came before, Schaeffer embarked on a journey to uncover the movements that gave rise to modern culture and resulted in the decline of the Christian worldview.

Forty years later, his classic book How Should We Then Live? is as relevant today as it was when it was first published. Schaeffer argues that the erosion of society begins with a shift away from biblical truth. To support this claim, he walks readers through history, beginning with the fall of Rome, through the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment, and up to the twentieth century.

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Here is a list that I thought was particularly good, which is why I obviously saved it, posted January 2021 by one Ulrich:

Quote:

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1. The Road to Serfdom
1a. The Constitution, Declaration, and Federalist and Antifederalist papers.

2. Anything by Sowell. Basic Economics, Conflict of Visions, Intellectuals and Society.

3. Freakanomics. Sounds a little dumb next to the other titles, but it's a mindset that people need to understand and use.

4. Thinking, Fast and Slow (Kahneman), (Tetlock), Fooled by Randomness and Black Swan (Taleb). Learn humility in the face the of unpredictable self and unpredictable reality.

5. Aristotle's Ethics and Plato's Republic. William James' philosophical writings.

6. Atlas Shrugged, 1984, Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World

7. Make a real effort to understand Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Burke, Locke/Hume/Hobbes on politics, Carlyle/Tolstoy on history, Karl Marx, Keynes, Friedman, Veblen, H. Frank Knight, Schumpeter, Weber, Nietzsche, and Kant even if you don't actually sit down and read their work. And an honest effort... you don't have to agree, but meet them on their own ground and understand where they are coming from. Every one of those thinkers has something to teach you no matter how much you disagree with their conclusions.

8. Chernow's biographies of Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, JP Morgan, and JD Rockefeller.

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And I'll just add some others I've enjoyed and learned from:

You could read all of the slave narratives for free: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, Up From Slavery by Booker T, Washington, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or, the escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery

We Believe the Children: A Moral Panic in the 1980s - Modern day witch hunt falsely accusing day care workers of Satanic ritual abuse

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution - This was excellent

The Welfare of Nations - effects of the welfare state

The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium - Information technologies have enabled the public, composed of amateurs, people from nowhere, to break the power of the political hierarchies of the industrial age, undercutting the top down control of the elites, and the overall effect has been constant political turbulence.

Dirty_Mike&the_boys said:

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I like Bill O'Reilly's books personally

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I've never read any of them, but even my yellow dog Democrat liked some of O''Reilly's historical books.

Death of the West - Pat Buchanan

History of the oil industry up to 1990.