American Conservatism
Last updated: January 20, 2023
Some years before the start of the Trump era, Five Books enlisted the support of author and journalist Jonathan Rauch, also a senior fellow at Brookings, to choose ten conservative commentators and politicians and ask them to recommend the books that, for them, defined conservatism. You'll find the interviews Jonathan conducted listed below.
After the interviews were complete, we asked the panel to vote on which of the 50 or so books that had been chosen were the most important in the conservative canon. Here's the outcome of the voting, with all the books that got 5 or more votes:
Witness by Whittaker Chambers (9 votes)
The Road to Serfdom by Frederich Hayek (9 votes)
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville (6 votes)
The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay (6 votes)
Free to Choose by Milton Friedman (5 votes)
On Liberty by John Stuart Mill (5 votes)
Thinking about Crime by James Q Wilson (5 votes)
Not interested in conservatism? We also interviewed ten progressive commentators and politicians. That series can be found here.
The best books on Compassionate Conservatism, recommended by Karl Rove
Karl Rove recommends five historical works that define, for him, the essence of American Conservatism.
The best books on Simple Governance, recommended by Mike Huckabee
Conservative broadcaster, former Arkansas governor, and possible 2012 contender challenges the concept of the elite and says that faith alone, without action, is meaningless
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1
The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945
by George H Nash -
2
American Conservatism in the Age of Enterprise 1865-1910
by Robert Green McCloskey -
3
Invisible Hands
by Kim Phillips-Fein -
4
The Neoconservatives
by Peter Steinfels -
5
The Redhunter: A Novel Based on the Life of Senator Joe McCarthy
by William F Buckley Jr
The best books on The Appeal of Conservatism, recommended by E J Dionne
The best books on The Appeal of Conservatism, recommended by E J Dionne
From immediate post-war battles against the New Deal to the rise of the neoconservative movement, Washington Post columnist and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, E J Dionne traces the growth of conservatism in America
The best books on Liberty and Morality, recommended by Peter Berkowitz
The Hoover Institution scholar explores five books that he believes teach us something about how we are “failing to understand, appreciate and defend our liberty”
The best books on Traditional and Liberal Conservatism, recommended by Brink Lindsey
Modern conservatism is being driven by an historically unlikely coalition of libertarians and traditionalists, says the vice-president for research at the Cato Institute.
David Frum recommends five Pioneering Conservative Books
The CNN columnist and former speechwriter for George W Bush, David Frum, recommends five conservative books that transformed the way we think about fundamental problems.
The best books on Tea Party Conservatism, recommended by Grover Norquist
The leading Conservative strategist and Head of Americans for Tax Reform argues that liberals actively undermine what makes America great. He chooses five books to better understand conservative America
The best books on Freedom Isn’t Enough, recommended by Yuval Levin
The Founder and Editor of National Affairs Magazine speculates how the founding fathers of Conservatism might have been nervous about Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement
The best books on Conservatism and Culture, recommended by Sam Tanenhaus
Sam Tanenhaus, editor of The New York Times Book Review from 2004 to 2013, explains how the American right reinvented itself as a cultural counter-revolution and selects five books as backgrounders to conservatism.
The best books on How Libertarians Can Govern, recommended by Mitch Daniels
The Governor of Indiana promotes a new philosophy of libertarianism and selects the books that have influenced him most.