Politics & Current Events
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Re: What book should any self respecting PCE poster read?
Above Us Only Sky
The Constitution, from cover to cover, so to speak.
Freakonomics
1984
The Handmaid's Tale
At least one Lincoln biography
At least one of Gloria Steinem's books
Probably, The Jungle
Nurture Shock
And IMO, Critical Condition: how healthcare became big business and bad medicine.
I may amend later.
Go The F*&( To Sleep
Are we supposed to have a discussion about this? I'm picking it up from the library this week.
Omnivore's Dilemma
What's the Matter With Kansas
Freakonomics
Lies My Teacher Told Me
40/112
I hated this book. I think it should only be read if one already has a pretty firm grasp on US History. It requires skeptical reading, otherwise you just sound like a moveon.org ad when you talk about it.
we all fall down sometimes
brass and ballet flats
The Federalist Papers, Atlas Shrugged. The Big Short for the financial crisis.
I'm reading Charles Murray's Coming Apart and I would love to see us discuss it.
Find me here instead!
I love Jeffrey Toobin. I've been thinking about reading this book.
There should be a PCE book club.
I also wish I could make everyone on the Bump to read it.
Is winner take all politics the same as Fixing Elections? Great book.
Also, The People's History.
I've only read excerpts from this. But yeah, it should be on my to-read list.
My grad degree is in US history, so I actually already knew a lot of the stuff he was talking about, in addition to the stuff taught in schools.
It's interesting that we came at it from different backgrounds/perspectives and had different experiences with it, though. For me, reading it was like when I watch Bill Maher. I was all, "Right on!" and "OMG, I know!" and then ranted about things like the fact that the Civil War was, in fact, about slavery to my husband while he was doing dishes. He takes it in stride.
40/112
This is Winner-Take-All Politics by Jacob S. Hacker:
http://www.amazon.com/Winner-Take-All-Politics-Washington-Richer-Turned/dp/1416588698
Someone suggested we read it and discuss it about 2 months ago. I am following through with that suggestion... soon. I think we wanted to discuss it in March, but then there wasn't really any follow up about it.
40/112
I didn't mean to suggest that you weren't able to read it critically. I was using "you" in the general sense. I think that book is incredibly biased and there were parts I did give the side eye to. I think just throwing it out there as an "everyone should read this" proposition is dangerous because it should be something that adds to a body of information you already have. It shouldn't just be a stand alone "this will substitute for your having slept through US history in HS" book and I think a lot of people who rave about it fall into that category. I agree that the civil war was about slavery. But the biographic info on Lincoln, I found to be suspect. Didn't that book also suggest that Lincoln might have been gay? Or am I confusing it with another book? At any rate, without inciting HAB's furry, I cannot get on board with a "Lincoln was actually a racist" thesis and the author lost a lot of credibility with me when he went down that road.
OH, it's out of print but "Class" is a great book about what it means to be cultured v. wealthy. Old money v. new money. Consumerism v. class. Fascinating read. I think it was published in 1981 and it's still largely true. It even has a multiple choice test at the end to determine which class you actually belong to and it does not equate class with income, which I find particularly interesting.
Is this it?
http://www.amazon.com/Class-Through-American-Status-System/dp/0671792253/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332880761&sr=8-1
i have the SLJ audio book AND a print copy. FTW!
No, he didn't suggest Lincoln was gay. His main thesis in that section was that Lincoln was an abolitionist, not a racist (though he quoted some choice racist remarks from Stephen Douglas). He tried to disprove the theory that Lincoln "only wanted to save the union" and that slavery and freeing the slaves was a kind of afterthough, since most Northerners weren't abolitionists. But perhaps I should give that chapter a reread.
I agree that it's not a substitute for US history. If you're sitting there thinking, "When was Wilson president, again?" most of it won't be helpful at all. I think most people on this board would be more able to handle it than the general public, though. But I have a higher regard for this board than the general public on most issues.
40/112
Righteous Indignation by Andrew Breitbart
Road to Serfdom by Fredrich Hayek
The Way Things Ought to Be by Rush Limbaugh
The latter was the one who transformed me from a sleepwalking liberalism to conservatism. I found it on my father-in-law Orson Bean's bookshelf.
Absolutely.
Aaah Ok. This is the book I thought it was: Also a great read. The chapter on redistricting is a bit long and dry, but interesting. I have fond TMI memories of that chapter.
http://www.fixingelections.com/
Yeah, I think that is it. The cover on the version I have looks different, but I think that's the right author. There are a few different books all called "Class" and whenever I look it up on Amazon, I get confused about which one it is. But that one looks like the one.
{pwanning}{mawwied}