Best Political Book of the Year?

An old sparring partner of mine at the Perfect World, Pincher Martin seems pretty high on a new political history tracing the origins and triump of the American conservative movement, The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America, by Micklethwait and Wooldridge, apparently two British journalists with The Economist who know their beans.

He sums up:

The authors obviously know their subject well. They spent a great deal of time on America’s roads going to everything from evangelical church functions to right-wing scholarly seminars. The writing is incisive and smooth, moving easily and fluently across wide swaths of modern U.S. political history. But it never feels forced. While the two Brits are clearly fascinated by a mainstream political philosophy they admit has no counterpart in Europe, they write sympathetically of its aims, even as they maintain a proper critical distance. This book can remind Americans that, whatever tensions might currently exist across the Atlantic, when intelligent, fair-minded Europeans focus their attention on the United States, there are no finer observers of its politics and society. This is the best book I’ve read this year.

Hmmm. Sounds kinda good.

George Will agrees, for whatever that's worth.

At some point one of these publishers really has to start sending me free books for review. I don't just watch bad television upwards of 21 hours a day. I do know how to read, and I'm occasionally willing to do so. So long as there's nothing good on.

posted by Ace at 03:00 PM

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