2005 TAM Book Awards
Like music this year no book really blew my mind. There were some good books filled with great ideas. Like music, there’s always next year.
- Privilege by Ross Gregory Douthat
Douthat wrote the 21st Century God and Man at Yale. His story of life at Harvard was entrancing. He was surrounded by high achievement to get into Harvard’s hallowed halls but the feelings of many of his fellow students was what status was to be reached next. They saw Harvard as a stepping stone for elites to reach even greater heights. Through it you see Douthat’s passion for learning and his ability to be honest about himself.
- Blueprint for Action by Thomas Barnett
This is Barnett’s follow-up to The Pentagon’s New Map. It’s a plan of how to shrink the gap, spread globalization, and reduce terrorist threats. There’s plenty I disagree with, but Barnett has thought deeply and seriously about how to have “a future worth creating.” If you want to know what the Bush administration might do in the future read this book.
- Running the World by David Rothkopf
Despite Rothkopf being a former Clinton administration man and being unfair towards the Bush administration Running the World is the first history of the National Security Council. It’s become the main way Presidents get foreign policy done. He goes through the body’s ups and downs with a good look at what the actors had to face.
- Five Days in Philadelphia by Charles Peters
Peters gives us a great almost you-were-there account of Wendell Willkie winning the GOP Presidential nomination in 1940. As good as the political drama Peters argues that the stance of the moderate Willkie allowed Franklin Roosevelt to prepare the nation for war.
- The Cube and the Cathedral bye George Weigel
Weigel argues that a culture based on Christianity will defend freedom, pluralism, and democracy better than the secular culture plaguing Europe. It’s a great case for what’s troubling the continent.
