I Read Therefore I am: Part Deux

Pop Quiz

What inventive American musician said: “So many books, so little time.”?

What Robber Baron said: “A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.”?

What American author observed: “Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations. Of all the institutions that purport to do this, free libraries stand virtually alone in accomplishing this mission.”?

What American novelist said: “The three most important documents a free society gives are a birth certificate, a passport, and a library card.”?

What American journalist said: “A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.”?

Answers at the end of the post.

A library is a collectionof books and periodicals which can be read on site or borrowed. It usually also includes a reference section which may only be utilized by those of a curious bent. In the past there was even an uber reads service called the book mobile. Today the library does a passable imitation of a ghost town such is the state of reading books today. It serves as a reminder of why publishers offered “dust jackets” with their publications”.

It has been disclosed that the future Obama Presidential Library, presently displacing poor residents of Chicago, will include no books. This reminds us that there are no extant records confirming that Obama actually acquired an education. Perhaps they might want to change the name to The Obama Presidential Adoration Center.

The Biden presidential library, on the other hand, will include an extensive collection of coloring books as well as the complete works of Richard Scarry and Theodor Geisel. It is rumored that there will be a reading room where the general public can peruse the classified documents that were purloined by the former President during his long, and singularly inconsequential, Congressional career and his eight year tenure as a physical prop to create the illusion that Obama is, by comparison, intelligent.

A prior post, I Read Therefore I Am, was well-received and there were requests for more reading suggestions, This is the sequel.

Biography

David Blight’s Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom is a compelling story of a man who was born a slave and died a free man. He was the first Black person to dine at the White House, a guest of Abraham Lincoln. His 1859 speech entitled Self-Made Men should be required reading in the public schools.

The much maligned Christopher Columbus is the subject of Samuel Morrison’s Admiral of the Ocean Sea, published in 1942. It is untainted by the revisionist history that is served a la carte in most public schools.

For those who are curious as to what a political fanatic does when he gets his hands on the levers of power it is worth perusing Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution by Ruth Scurr. It should raise the alarm about the budding career of Zohran Mamdani, yet another dim-witted zealot.

Education

If you want to better understand the collapse of education in our public schools we recommend The Worm in the Apple: How the Teacher Unions Are Destroying American Education by Peter Brimelow. Randi Weingarten is recreating the Bataan Death March with students as the prisoners of mandatory education.

In his book The Conspiracy of Ignorance: The Failure of American Public Schools Martin Gross takes on the education disestablishment and it is not a pretty picture. The teaching schools have failed to produce competent teachers, penalizing its 45 million public school students. They teach what to think not how to think,

Prof Scam: Professors and the Demise of Higher Education by Charles Sykes is a sobering exposé on the Departments of Education found at our universities and colleges…incubators of the propagandists who go on to inflict teaching incompetence on hapless students.

Fiction

Between 1930 and 1956 Kenneth Roberts wrote a series of historical novels related to the American Revolution. Rabble in Arms, Northwest Passage, Oliver Wiswell and Captain Caution, among others, should be a staple in every school library.

The master satirist Jonathan Swift authored Gulliver’s Travels and A Modest Proposal. The latter, written in 1729, proposed a modest solution to the Great Famine in Ireland.

The British historian Dan Jones has written a series of books covering the history of England from 1154 to 1485: The Plantagenets, The War of the Roses and The Magna Carta. Events described in those books did much to influence our history. The classic movies Beckett and The Lion in the Winter are set during this period.

We also recommend State of Fear by Michael Chrichton and Seven Days in May by Knebel and Bailey. The latter was the basis for the great movie of the same name, with an all-star cast.

Race

A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution by David Nichols memorializes one the most closely guarded secrets in America…the most significant steps forward in race relations since the Civil War. Why a secret? Because it was undertaken entirely by the Republican Party over the fierce opposition of the Party that was still upset about losing their slaves under an earlier Republican President.

The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America by Shelby Steele deals with racial misconceptions with candor and persuasive argument. Steele shows us how both black and white Americans have become trapped into seeing color before character, and how social policies designed to lessen racial inequities have instead increased them. It should be noted for the record the Steele is a graduate of Coe College. Fellow alums include Marv Levy of the Buffalo Bills, Hall of Fame NBA coach Bill Fitch and your humble scribe.

David Horowitz is a recovering Leftist and he has authored a number of excellent books. We strongly recommend Progressive Racism published in 2016.

Elections

Williams Rehnquist, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, has written an excellent narrative about the disputed Presidential election of 1876. The book, Centennial Crisis, puts the entirety of the election and its aftermath in historical context. It was the last election that saw meaningful Black voting participation in the South for 75 years.

Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections by Mollie Hemingway explains very effectively the fraudulent election of Joe Biden. A good companion read is 2000 Mules by Dinesh D’Souza.

Who’s Counting?: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk by John Fund focuses on the continuing effort by the Left to replace the Electoral College with an unmonitored and easily abused popular vote. It outlines the strategy of the Democrats leading law firm, Wee, Cheatem and Howe.

History

Are you an Oxfordian or a Stratfordian? That conflict was definitively resolved by Charlton Ogburn in his illuminating book The Mysterious William Shakespeare. When the merchant from Stratford on Avon died he owned but 3 or 4 books. Hardly what you would have expected of the greatest English language writer in history. In addition there was no record of his ever having left England. Yet the plays were set in a wide range of European locations: For example, The Taming of the Shrew (a play Bill Clinton should have studied) was set in Italy, A Midsummer Nights Dream in Greece and The Merchant of Venice, strangely enough, in Venice, Italy. The verdict according to Ogburn…Edward De Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the author of all the sonnets and plays attributed to the Bard.

James Chace authored a wonderful book entitled 1912:: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs–The Election that Changed the Country. As a result of the third party candidacies of the egomaniac Teddy Roosevelt and the socialist Eugene V. Debs Woodrow Wilson became President and the centralization of power in Washington was off to the races.

A pair of books do great justice to intellectual transformation of the world in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. The Reformation: A History by Diarmaid MacCulloch and The Enlightenment And Why It Still Matters by Anthony Pagden. The influence on the American Experiment of these societal advancements was profound.

Social Issues

Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds is an invaluable analysis of the power of political correctness as a tool to distort political dialogue.

Allum Bokhari’s #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal the Election lays out the media’s ongoing efforts to seize control of the flow of information, and utilize that power to its full extent—to censor, manipulate, and ultimately sway the outcome of democratic elections.

Disinformation: 22 Media Myths That Undermine the War on Terror by Richard Miniter introduces the disinfectant of light on numerous media myths…well written and mercilessly researched.

Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier is a must read for those who are troubled by the disturbing infliction of transgender indoctrination on our body politic.

Islam

All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror by Stephen Kinzer provides an invaluable historical perspective on the disaster that has been our involvement with Iran since the 1940’s. Jimmy Carter call your office.

In his compelling book A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith conservative Wisconsin native and former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasse endeavors to answer the question: “Can a good Muslim be a good American as well?”

Islamic Imperialism: A History by Efraim Karsh provides a vivid primer for those Americans who have no understanding of the history of Islam.

These books are but a small sampling of the reading smorgasbord to be found at a public library near you…bon appetit!.

Answers to the pop quiz:

What inventive American musician said: “So many books, so little time.”? Frank Zappa (and the Mothers of Invention)

What Robber Baron said: “A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.”? Andrew Carnegie, who financed 1,079 public libraries in America

What American author observed: “Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations. Of all the institutions that purport to do this, free libraries stand virtually alone in accomplishing this mission.”? Toni Morrison

What American novelist said: “The three most important documents a free society gives are a birth certificate, a passport, and a library card.”? E.L. Doctorow

What American journalist said: “A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.”? Norman Cousins

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