Idiot America, Charles Pierce

"The three Great Premises of Idiot America:
· Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units
· Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough
· Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it

Pierce asks how a country founded on intellectual curiosity has somehow deteriorated into a nation of simpletons more apt to vote for an American Idol contestant than a presidential candidate. But his thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma, and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated. Erudite and razor-sharp, Idiot America is at once an invigorating history lesson, a cutting cultural critique, and a bullish appeal to our smarter selves."

This is an entertaining, but shallow look at where America's unreasonable distrust of reason has come from. Unfortunately it's a little bit too please with itself and comes across as a caricature of smug liberalism, exhausting the things it actually has to say about 20 pages in and then continuing on for much longer than is really required.

I've got a lot of time for people who want to raise the level of public discourse in the US, who believe that vilifying science and education, raising up the ignorant and creating an atmosphere of debate where there's two sides to every story is ridiculous and damaging but this book is more focused on cheap point scoring and ad hominem attacks, plus a peculiar fascination with the work of James Madison and obscure 19th Century cranks and oddballs.

The root of the problem comes from Pierce's idea that there's something noble and righteous about being slightly unhinged and coming up with crazy iideas. He just thinks they've become too mainstream and America has followed them too far into the wilderness. This misses the point, that education, science and the progression of knowledge invalidate the crank altogether.

Not really worth reading, in the end, but it does have a beautiful cover illustration, and the book itself has the heft and weight of something much better than itself.

Double Down: Game Change 2012, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann

"Double Down picks up the story in the Oval Office, where the president is beset by crises both inherited and unforeseen—facing defiance from his political foes, disenchantment from the voters, disdain from the nation’s powerful money machers, and dysfunction within the West Wing. As 2012 looms, leaders of the Republican Party, salivating over Obama’s political fragility, see a chance to wrest back control of the White House—and the country. So how did the Republicans screw it up? How did Obama survive the onslaught of super PACs and defy the predictions of a one-term presidency? Double Down follows the gaudy carnival of GOP contenders—ambitious and flawed, famous and infamous, charismatic and cartoonish—as Mitt Romney, the straitlaced, can-do, gaffe-prone multimillionaire from Massachusetts, scraped and scratched his way to the nomination."




This is, for me, probably the best book on political action, American politics and campaigns ever written. It's utterly fantastic, and hyperbole-busting stuff, the kind of writing which clutches at you and drags you with it to the finish from the very first page.

With surgical incisiveness Halperin and Heilemann dissect the hows and whys of the 2012 Presidential Campaign, examining in detail the merits and failures of the Republican and Democrat bids for the White House. From the excoriation of the performances on the Right, to the shellacking of Obama's record and position, the book shows how either side could have truimphed, but how the Republicans intransigence and mistakes sank their run and handed Obama the victory.

But rather than just looking at the two candidates and their rivals, the book also examines in depth the teams and outside agents who ran the race, from those in charge of Super PACs, to prominent critics and champions, to the donors, backers and stirrers of modern politics in Washington. Insightful, withering and witty, the book is paced like a thriller and written with a verve and style that belies the seemingly dry subject matter.

So worth reading, I've ordered the first book, chronicling the 2008 campaign, to keep going.

Also Try:
Barack Obama, Audacity of Hope
Molly Ivins, Bushwhacked
Al Franken, Why Not Me?

God's Politics, Jim Wallis

"Jim Wallis' book is a scathing indictment of the way that conservative evangelicals in the US have self-righteously attempted to co-opt any discussion of religion and politics. And, while the Right argues that God's way is their way, the Left pursues an unrealistic separation of religious values from morally grounded political leadership. God's Politics offers a clarion call to make America's religious communities and its government more accountable to key values of the prophetic religious tradition - pro-justice, pro-peace, pro-environment, pro-equality, pro-consistent ethic of life and pro-family. These are the values of love and justice, reconciliation, and community at the core of what many people believe, whether Christian or not."




The image on the front cover is misleading, because this isn't a book about George Bush, or religion and faith in politics in the sense of the 'family values' or 'religious right' crusaders. Instead, it's a thoughtful and essential examination of some of the biggest issues in contemporary culture, from war and violence, to political action, to the enviroment, and how Christians should respond.

I must confess to being slightly enraptured by it, because it is overtly Christian and resolutely progressive. Whilst some of the conclusions it reaches are the antithesis of the 'liberal' platform, they are all neatly and comprehensively wrapped in a single core fact; God loves us, and the world, and we should represent that through love and service towards others.

This for me then is the summation of what Christian life is, and the debates and wisdom contained within are challenging and enlightening to me both as a liberal christian and a Christian Liberal. Some of it I disagree with, most of it I find humbling, but none of it can be easily disregarded. For any Christian who wishes to adequately grapple with the demands of faith and politics in the 21st Century this is essential reading.


Also Try:
Shane Claiborne, The Irresistable Revolution
Sojourners, http://sojo.net/

America Alone; The End Of The World As We Know It, Mark Steyn

"It's the end of the world as we know it...Someday soon, you might wake up to the call to prayer from a muezzin. Europeans already are. And liberals will still tell you that "diversity is our strength"--while Talibanic enforcers cruise Greenwich Village burning books and barber shops, the Supreme Court decides sharia law doesn't violate the "separation of church and state," and the Hollywood Left decides to give up on gay rights in favor of the much safer charms of polygamy. If you think this can't happen, you haven't been paying attention, as the hilarious, provocative, and brilliant Mark Steyn shows to devastating effect. The future, as Steyn shows, belongs to the fecund and the confident. And the Islamists are both, while the West is looking ever more like the ruins of a civilization. But America can survive, prosper, and defend its freedom only if it continues to believe in itself, in the sturdier virtues of self-reliance (not government), in the centrality of family, and in the conviction that our country really is the world's last best hope."

Mark Steyn's America Alone is the kind of book that I pick up every now and then and read in the same way Southern schools approach creationism and evolution; it's reading the controversy, Frankly, if the above quote doesn't represent it enough, American Alone is a brilliantly though out, well argued and utterly incorrect assertion that Islam is on an unstoppable path to taking over Europe and the world.

There's so much wrong about this that even the stuff that's genuinely interesting and important can be ignored; the work on demographics, and attempt to get beyond the stale arguments between conservative and liberals about Islam to talk about what Islam itself believes is good, but too often if becomes bogged down in reactionary dogma and xenophobic spite.

If you've seen Affleck vs Maher recently, you'll know the thrust of the argument; Islam is a threat not just to conervative ideology but liberal too, there's more of them every year and less of us, and sooner of later their ideas win democratically because they can muster the only voices. It all relies on an us-them attitude, and ignores pretty much anything on progressive or liberal voices within Islam, but it's an argument that seems to be growing in popularity and prominence.

It's worth reading then, if only to be able to refute it, and to quote it in disbelief to incredulous friends.

Also Try:
This American Life: A Not So Simple Majority; http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/534/a-not-so-simple-majority

Prime Minister Portillo and other things that never happened, various

"What if Lenin's train had crashed on the way to the Finland Station? Lee Harvey Oswald had missed? Lord Halifax had become Prime Minister in 1940 instead of Churchill? In this diverting and thought-provoking book of counter-factuals a collection of distinguished commentators consider how things might have been."









I find these non-fiction 'What if?' books slightly sad, as they work as neither a truly good history book, or as a work of historical fiction. This is compounded by a mixed bag of authors, who range from those catalogueing slight alterations to full blown changes in the timeline, in a variety of styles, with varying degrees of success.

One of the big issues is that very few of these imagine a world changed all that much by the alterations they describe; most are obscure, or at least historically distant, enough that it's hard to see how a revitalised party or individual could have impacted more. Even greater changes, like JFK surviving or Churchill being passed over for Halifax engender only slight fluctuations - legislation passes slower, or the pace of the war moves differently, with the same fixed outcome.

It's a very Fukuyama-esque book, where the outcome we currently have is seemingly all that's possible. Compare and contrast to real works of speculative history, such as Harry Turtledove, and the difference is huge.

Often dry, sometimes interesting, but only fitfully worth dipping into, this is a book more for the writers than the readers, and is best passed over in favour of better offerings.

Also Try;

Robert Harris, Fatherland

Eric Flint; 1631

Harry Turtledove, Guns of the South

Women and the Kingdom, Faith and Roger Forster

"What does the Bible really say about women?

Should women be allowed to preach or lead in church?

What about what Paul said?

Women and the Kingdom is the long-awaited book by Faith and Roger Forster tackling the role of women within the Kingdom of God. This book takes you on an historical exploration of the roles of women in the Old, New and early church periods before ending up in the present day.

There is thorough, in-depth exegesis of the passages frequently used to argue the case against women in church leadership."

Anything that can really be said here is kind of irrelevant to be honest.

If you're Christian and Feminist (or just one of those), then you should read this. If you want to know what the Bible really teaches about women, then you should read this. If you have just a passing interest in how language shapes institutions, how institutions shape history, and why this is important. Yep, you guessed it, you should read this.

Look, lets face it. Most people have already come to a decision for themselves about the role of women in the church. At one extreme is the idea that women should be neither seen nor heard, that their authority is non-existent and that their principle role is to produce the next generation of male leaders. At the other extreme is ... well, actually, I'm not sure there IS another extreme. There's the centre, where people think that women should probably be able to play a part, say what they think and take a leadership role if they are qualified, but that's hardly an extremist view. That's barely even a view.

Still, because the argument is so skewed that this reasonable position is presented as aggressive Feminist shit-stirring, it's good to have a book that actually does what many men in positions of authority in the church seem to demand; a Biblically founded reason for women to have a role, born out of an exegesis of the text at hand, and an explanation of how the intent has been misrepresented to push women out of church leadership.

Frankly, this should be required reading for anyone before they go talking about what Paul thought about women, what the Bible really says or whether or not God has made women to be subservient to men.

Also Try:
The Bible
Shane Claiborne, The Irresistable Revolution

Power, Creation and Truth: The Gospel in a World of Cultural Confusion, Tom Wright

"In Creation, Power and Truth, Tom Wright invites readers to consider the crucial ways in which the Christian gospel challenges and subverts the intellectual, moral and political values that pervade contemporary culture. In doing so, he asks searching questions about three defining characteristics of our time: neo-gnosticism, neo-imperialism and postmodernity. Employing a robust Trinitarian framework, Wright looks afresh at key elements of the biblical story while drawing out new and unexpected connections between ancient and modern world-views. The result is a vigorous critique of common cultural assumptions and controlling narratives, past and present, and a compelling read for all who want to hear, speak and live the gospel of Christ in a world of cultural confusion."







This was, like everything by Wright, really really good, a three fold exploration of what it means to be a Christian living in modern post-enlightenment society. Between this and his other books there's loads that he's written on the idea, and all of them are well worth reading, but this is probably a good introductory primer to his key views; that post-modernism and enlightenment have left us with key assumptions about the language of science, faith, politics and culture that determine how we think about these ideas and give us an inaccurate and dangerous view of what the early church and scripture means.

There are some bits which are excellent and there is much which he has put better elsewhere. This is a book that specifically addresses post-modernism and the enlightenment in the way it affects our politics and faith, and this is probably the best reason to pick it up, as it's an interesting and stimulating critique of the foundational principles of modern liberalism, conservatism and the philosophical underpinnings of the West.

Also Try:
N. T. Wright, anything else
Faith and Roger Forster, Women and the Kingdom
C. S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters

The Irresistable Revolution, Shane Claiborne

"Many of us find ourselves caught somewhere between unbelieving activists and inactive believers. We can write a check to feed starving children or hold signs in the streets and feel like we've made a difference without ever encountering the faces of the suffering masses. In this book, Shane Claiborne describes an authentic faith rooted in belief, action, and love, inviting us into a movement of the Spirit that begins inside each of us and extends into a broken world. Shane's faith led him to dress the wounds of lepers with Mother Teresa, visit families in Iraq amidst bombings, and dump $10,000 in coins and bills on Wall Street to redistribute wealth. Shane lives out this revolution each day in his local neighborhood, an impoverished community in North Philadelphia, by living among the homeless, helping local kids with homework, and "practicing resurrection" in the forgotten places of our world. Shane's message will comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable...but will also invite us into an irresistible revolution. His is a vision for ordinary radicals ready to change the world with little acts of love."


I read this over Christmas, so it's a long time coming, and in the meantime I actually got a chance to meet the author and hear him speak about the book, which is the kind of nice thing that doesn't often happen but which makes any book a little bit better. Even ones that don't need that, because this is a book that has more power and urgency in its shortest sentence that most books do between the first and last page.

It is a polemic in the best sense of the word. If Monbiot's writing stirs up a righteous anger, a head-shaking, secular call to action against the world as it stands, then Claiborne is ushering in a Christian alternative, a politically liberal, Jesus centred movement towards how the world should be.

Boy, is it exciting!

This is the book that I want to tell people about, in the way that when I first became a Christian the gospels felt fresh and unexpected, so now Claibornes explanation of why they felt so different, and why that seems so at odds with what mainstream Christianity is, feels so impactful. I want to tell my secular friends, and my Christian friends, and even people who aren't really my friends about an alternative way, a better way, a simple way.

This is, let's just be clear here, a call to actual, practical revolution. Non violent, non-judgemental, but based around a gospel of love that stands utterly at odds with the politics, economy and culture of the world. A revolution predicated on the idea that loving your enemies means not bombing them, that feeding the hungry and clothing the starving is more important than increasing GDP, and that being "pro-life" doesn't mean moving on when a baby is born.

Taking aim at a culture that anaesthatises the current Western church as well as the wider world, Claiborne's call to lay down arms and move in to the worst neighbourhoods and live with the least well off is startling for its selflessness. Centred around an idea that it's impossible to ignore the homeless guy on a Monday if you really worship a homeless guy on a Sunday, he has sought to live a life loving people and God, from the streets and leprosy colonies of Calcutta, to urban America, to Iraq.

More than just a poverty tourist, short-term missional consumer, or a white saviour, his book creates a narrative of demonstrate the love and compassion of God to the unloved and overlooked, wherever and whoever they are.

For all the lefty, compassionate and unconservative, anti-organised religion people, he's a certified bleeding heart liberal; anti-war, anti-consumerist, proto-anarchist and, yet, Christian.

And to all the Bible believing, saved by faith, seeking, searching, longing, Christians, he's a man who thinks you should probably sell everything everything and give it to the poor if you want to take God's word seriously.

This is a man of apparent contradictions, but one passion. A simpler way of life; a life built up in love; a love first given by God.

Also Try:
http://www.thesimpleway.org/

The Age of Consent, George Monbiot

"A visionary road map for humanity's first global democratic revolution.  All over the planet, the rich get richer while the poor are overtaken by debt and disaster. The world is run by a handful of executives who make the most important of decisions—concerning war, peace, debt, development, and the balance of trade. Without democracy at the global level, the rest of us are left in the dark. George Monbiot shows us how to turn on the light.

Emphasizing not only that things ought to change, but how to change them, Monbiot develops an interlocking set of proposals that mark him as the most realistic utopian of our time. With detailed discussions of what a world parliament might look like, how trade can be organized fairly, and how underdeveloped nations can leverage their debt to obtain real change, Manifesto for a New World Order offers a truly global perspective, a defense of democracy, and an understanding of power and how it might be captured from those unfit to retain it."

Like Captive State this is a brilliant read that will make you so, so mad, although it takes a lot longer to get going and is mired in a slightly confused intent.

Set out as a manifesto for a global democratic institution Monbiot seeks to answer the question of who rules the world, where their authority is derived and how we can change this at an international and global level.

This is the less interesting part of the book, because Monbiot's key strength is in tearing apart the hypocrisy and deceit of the powerful, and nowhere is this clearer than when he turns his attention to the global institutions designed to help the poorest nations. His anger is infectious, in a few short chapters he rips apart the arguments and dissembling and presents a picture of Western culpability and responsibility for global poverty that cuts through the promises and words of politicians and shreds their empty rhetoric.

Like The Bottom Billion it also has some ways in which this can be changed, but again these are secondary to the real meat of the book. As an exposé it's riveting reading, and cherry picking chapters is well worth doing.

Unlike the Bottom Bilion, that isn't the real intent though - it's meant to be a practical means to kick start reasonable global governance, which is a somewhat lofty goal which doesn't seem to have too much backing it up. In fairness Monbiot addresses this problem at length but the conclusion he draws (better to try) doesn't really engender much hope.

Also Try:

www.monbiot.com

George Monbiot, Captive State

Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion

Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto

The Progressive Patriot, Billy Bragg

"What does it mean to be English? What does it mean to be British? Is the cross of St George a proud symbol of a great tradition, or the badge of a neo-Nazi? In a world where British citizens can lay bombs to kill their countrymen, where religious fundamentalism is on the increase and where the BNP are somehow part of the democratic process, what does patriotism actually mean?

Our identity can change depending on what company we are in. For example, someone could describe themselves British to one person, Scottish to another and, say, a Londoner to another, and be right every time. But problems arise when someone tries to tell you what you are, based on your skin tone, religion, accent, surname, or whatever.

This book is Billy Bragg's urgent, eloquent and passionate response to the events of 7 July 2005, when four bombs tore through a busy morning in London, killing 52 innocent people and injuring many more.

A firm believer in toleration and diversity, he felt himself hemmed in by fascists on one side and religious fanatics on the other. The suicide bombers were all British-born and well integrated into our multicultural society. Yet they felt no compunction in murdering and maiming their fellow citizens. Inclusivity is important, but without a sense of belonging to accompany it, what chance social cohesion...

But where does a sense of belonging come from? Can it be conferred by a legal document? Is it a matter of blood and soil? Can it be taught? Is it nature or nurture? The Progressive Patriot is a book we all need to read. It pulls no punches in its insights and its radical vision offers a positive hope for a country teetering on the brink of catastrophe."

It's been a bit of a struggle for me to get through this book, not because it's not interesting but because it can't quite decide what it wants to be, and tends to get a bit exhausting as it zips between a history of the country, an autobiography and a discussion of 70s folk music and the London pub scene.

It's an eclectic mix, and whilst Bragg certainly knows his stuff it never really coheres into a single narrative beyond "racism is bad, but I like music". It's at its most interesting when it talks about his passions; Simon and Garfunkel, the colonisation and appropriation of English history, and what it means to be English. But having read Watching the English so recently there's nothing here that seems deep enough - certainly his assetion that class has been eliminated is painfully untrue, and his optimism for the future free of race baiting and distrust isn't exactly holding up too well post-economic crash.

It's intended to be a manifesto for left wing patriotism, showing how multiculuralism is part of what it means to be English, and reclaiming British history from the Imperial white washers and conservative reformists who attempt to take a back to basics approach to education that emphasises English achievements abroard. Unfortunately it takes too long, and is far too anecdotal to engage with a broad and difficult topic, and never comes close to providing answers.

Also Try:
Kate Fox; Watching the English,
Jeremy Paxman, The English
Bill Bryson, Neither Here Nor There

The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier

"In this elegant and impassioned synthesis from one of the world's leading experts on Africa and poverty, economist Paul Collier writes persuasively that although nearly five billion of the world's people are beginning to climb from desperate poverty and to benefit from globalization's reach to developing countries, there is a "bottom billion" of the world's poor whose countries, largely immune to the forces of global economy, are falling farther behind and are in danger of falling apart, separating permanently and tragically from the rest of the world. Collier identifies and explains the four traps that prevent the homelands of the world's billion poorest people from growing and receiving the benefits of globalization - civil war, the discovery and export of natural resources in otherwise unstable economies, being landlocked and therefore unable to participate in the global economy without great cost, and finally, ineffective governance. As he demonstrates that these billion people are quite likely in danger of being irretrievably left behind, Collier argues that we cannot take a "headless heart" approach to these seemingly intractable problems; rather, that we must harness our despair and our moral outrage at these inequities to a reasoned and thorough understanding of the complex and interconnected problems that the world's poorest people face."

The Bottom Billion is an attempt to explain why we haven't yet made poverty history, and just what the limits on aid, intervention and Western attempts to bring the poorest nations up to their level aren't working. Within that it chooses to differentiate between those developing countries that are growing, and those that contain a billion people which show no signs of development at all.

The heart of this book is that it's based on matchless research, exhaustively detailed to show that far from being a war on global poverty we have mainly been bringing up the majority of the world blessed with positive positions and able to respond to reform.

Collier's thesis, that a shift to raising the standards in the bottom nations, is well set out and argued, and is sure to be uncomfortable reading for anyone interested in international development. It is especially scathing of the more aid only approach that is so often pushed, and his work on defining how aid can damage non-developing nations is excellent.

It's a common argument now to rail against the usefulness of charity but Collier also goes out of his way to demonstrate the positives of aid - that without it countries would be relatively worse off, and that simply by tweaking the grounds and remit of aid-led intervention the consequences can be more positive.

Over the course of the book Collier goes on to talk about not just what we can do, but what we should be encouraging these nations to do themselves, and it's worth reading just to get a picture of the complex and often contrary ways in which we'll meaning Western campaigns can actually damage policy and initiatives that encourage growth and alleviate poverty.

It's this last part that may be the hardest for many to swallow, as Collier is absolutely wedded to the idea that only through capitalist expansion can these nations grow. It's something that I personally find hard to accept until I really think it through, but his research and examples do an excellent job of setting out his case, especially in the way he shows that without their own foundations our aid will simply crumble.

It's interesting that he rarely resorts to anything beyond his facts and figures, only talking about the moral or social implications and demands in passing, and then infrequently. I think that's an issue that needed to be addressed more, not out of the liberal guilt that the West have caused or prolonged many of the damaging situations that the poorest find themselves in, but simply because there should be an international duty to people that isn't routed in economic reasoning and selfish realpolitik of benefits versus costs.

Maybe this is the first step though. At the very least its a good way to convince those who would argue against engagement and intervention in these situations using a range of methods.

Also Try:
http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_collier_shares_4_ways_to_help_the_bottom_billion.html Paul Collier at TED

Eat the Rich, Seamus O'Heaney
African Diary, Bill Bryson
Belching out the Devil, Mark Thomas

Captive State, George Monbiot

"A devastating indictment of the corruption at the heart of the British State by one of our most popular media figures.George Monbiot made his name exposing the corruption of foreign governments; now he turns his keen eye on Britain. In the most explosive book on British politics of the new decade, Monbiot uncovers what many have suspected but few have been able to prove: that corporations have become so powerful they now threaten the foundations of democratic government.Many of the stories George Monbiot recounts have never been told before, and they could scarcely be more embarrassing to a government that claims to act on behalf of all of us. Some are - or should be - resigning matters. Effectively, the British government has collaborated in its own redundancy, by ceding power to international bodies controlled by corporations. CAPTIVE STATE highlights the long term threat to our society and ultimately shows us ways in which we can hope to withstand the might of big business."


Much like Bad Science, this is a book that made me so angry about the role that big corporations play in shaping society, and the way in which the Government and institutions have collaborated or been undermined to the extent that they set policies for the benefit of the rich multinationals instead of their own people.

Looking at a series of different (but often interlinked) cases, Monbiot demonstrates how under New Labour the corporations and businesses were given more and more access and more and more power, to the point where they essentially control vast swathes of government policy at both a local and national level.

Essential reading for anyone interested in how the privitisation of Government is likely to benefit only those who take over, whilst ignoring and actively hurting the rest of the country, this is a brutal takedown of the way in which corporations present themselves as efficient, beneficial or ethical.

Also Try:
Ben Goldacre, Bad Science
Naomi Klein, No Logo
Mark Thomas, Belching Out The Devil