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Welcome to yet another edition of The Federalist’s annual notable books column. At the end of every year, we ask the staff at The Federalist, as well as some of our more esteemed contributors, to make some book recommendations based on whatever they read in the last year that was enjoyable or edifying. So without further ado …

Today is J.R.R. Tolkien's birthday.

Tolkien penned some of our civilization's greatest works, but you may not know why he did — or how.

His stories are so enduringly real because he actually lived them... (thread) 🧵

Without an understanding and appreciation of the culture we seek to preserve and protect, the defense of Western civilization is fundamentally futile; a culture that believes in nothing cannot defend itself, because it has nothing to defend. The past not only still has something to tell us, but it also has something that it must tell us. In this profound and wide-ranging historical survey, Michael Walsh illuminates the ways that the narrative and visual arts both reflect and affect the course of political history, outlining the way forward by arguing for the restoration of the Heroic Narrative that forms the basis of all Western cultural and religious traditions. Let us listen, then, to the angels of our nature, for better and worse. They have much to tell us, if only we will listen.

The answer to inflation, say the authors, is discarding long-held misperceptions that helped bring on the current crisis. They include the notion that central banks can create prosperity by producing money “out of thin air,” and that economic “stability” requires “a little inflation.” For decades these ideas have been Holy Writ in Washington. Inflation shows why they’re misguided, and also why the heedless money-printing being pushed today by left-wing advocates of “Modern Monetary Theory” would lead us down the road to disaster.

I was driving with my brother, the preacher, and my nephew, the preacher’s son, on I-65 just north of Bowling Green when we got a flat. It was Sunday night and we had been to visit Mother at the Home. We were in my car. The flat caused what you might call knowing groans since, as the old-fashioned one in my family (so they tell me), I fix my own tires, and my brother is always telling me to get radials and quit buying old tires.

But if you know how to mount and fix tires yourself, you can pick them up for almost nothing.

ANDERSON GENTRY
Science Fiction, Alternative History, Action and Adventure

Ward Clark grew up in the hills and trout streams of northeast Iowa’s wooded uplands, gaining a keen interest in wildlife, camping, hunting, fishing and the outdoors. Gentry served in the U.S. Army in the last years of the Cold War, including service in the Persian Gulf War. //

Ward Clark's vision of the future combines a high-tech, planet-hopping world presented in a gritty, real style that has led some to call him the “Tom Clancy of Sci-Fi.” His fast-paced, hard-hitting style combines a unique blend of outdoor savvy, real-world military experience and realistic character development to the sci-fi genre.

My reading list is varied, and sometimes a little on the odd side. It's pretty evenly mixed between fiction and non-fiction and between contemporary and historical works. At present, I'm making my way through Oswald Spengler's "The Decline of the West," which prompts some interesting and uncomfortable comparisons to the United States today. I'd probably get more out of it were I able to read it in the original German, but my sprechen sie is inadequate to the task; ask me to order a pilsener and a plate of schnitzel, and I can manage, but a treatise on politics of the Weimar Republic? Not so much.

I've always been addicted to reading. My parents were as well; Dad in particular hated television but whenever he was sitting still, he always had a book at hand. Mom, too, was addicted to reading and was fond of murder mysteries and Jane Austen novels. My own reading was limited to Louis L'Amour novels, and Pat McManus' short story collections such as "A Fine and Pleasant Misery," until I was about 16. //

[My American Lit teacher] handed me a book with a bookmark in place and said, "Read this." I looked at the cover; it was a compilation of Ernest Hemingway's "The Nick Adams Stories." I opened the book to the bookmark and found a story called "The Big Two-Hearted River." I read that. Then I read the rest of the book. Then I went back to the teacher asking for more. I was hooked. //

Reading - and writing - are great endeavors. It's a pity that so many in our political class seem to do neither. //

Sonia Purnell’s just released biography of Pamela Harriman, Kingmaker, attempts to be fairer to its subject than previous biographies. As the subtitle implies, Harriman led a “Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue,” and there is a lot in here about the subject’s early role as a courtesan. Whatever the details of that role, it was far in the past when I came to know and work with Ambassador Harriman on issues of international importance.

During my last four years in the FBI, I worked with dozens of U.S. ambassadors. I served as the Legal Attaché (“Legat” in Bureau jargon) at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. However, for the FBI and the DOJ, our office had wide regional responsibility. We handled the business of the Justice Department with 26 countries in Africa. So, I dealt with a wide variety of our ambassadors at posts large and small.

“Political” ambassadors are often criticized as dilettantes who buy their appointments with large campaign donations. They are contrasted with career ambassadors, who rise through the ranks of the State Department. I have quite a different impression. The political ambassadors, coming from various roles in American society, saw their mission as representing the United States as a whole, while career ambassadors narrowly protected the interests of the State Department, to the exclusion of other agencies.

When I was first assigned to the embassy in Paris, it was led by an ambassador who understood and valued what the FBI could do. Yes, she was a substantial fundraiser for President Bill Clinton, who appointed her, but she demonstrated a love for her adopted country. Pamela Churchill Harriman, a British-born aristocrat, had become the U.S. ambassador to France just months before my arrival in June 1994. //

That is how we happened to set up a luncheon for a group of federal judges.

At that luncheon, Thomas S. Ellis III, a federal district judge from the Eastern District of Virginia, discussed the World War II Normandy landings. Tom Ellis was recommending a new book. He mentioned a specific finding by the author, concerning a key Allied decision.

Ambassador Harriman responded, “No, that was Ike’s call.”

Judge Ellis persisted. “This author says …”

The ambassador: “Oh, no, Omar Bradley told me it was Ike’s call.”

A look of recognition came over Judge Ellis’s face: He realized he was in the presence of someone with firsthand knowledge of World War II.

Pamela Churchill Harriman was truly a remarkable woman. Once married to Winston Churchill’s only son and the mother of Churchill’s only grandson, she was in the room when many of the key decisions of World War II were made. For the next half century, she would continue to meet influential men, be they from London, Washington, or Hollywood. //

Thomas J. Baker is an international law enforcement consultant. He served as a FBI Special Agent for 33 years in a variety of investigative and management positions facing the challenges of crime and terrorism. He is the author of "The Fall of the FBI: How a Once Great Agency Became a Threat to Democracy."

https://www.crossway.org/NEWSLE

Steve Sailer’s ‘Noticing,’ collects decades of the politically incorrect journalist’s columns, conclusively demonstrating that he is one of our most astute and farseeing pundits.

The first full account of how the Cold War arms race finally came to a close, this riveting narrative history sheds new light on the people who struggled to end this era of massive overkill, and examines the legacy of the nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons that remain a threat today.

Drawing on memoirs, interviews in both Russia and the US, and classified documents from deep inside the Kremlin, David E. Hoffman examines the inner motives and secret decisions of each side and details the deadly stockpiles that remained unsecured as the Soviet Union collapsed. This is the fascinating story of how Reagan, Gorbachev, and a previously unheralded collection of scientists, soldiers, diplomats, and spies changed the course of history.

Buchanan documents, as have others before him, that both the First and Second World Wars are primarily the product of wretchedly incompetent management of international relations on the part of Britain, France, Germany, and others. //

Most readers, myself included, will not buy all of Buchanan's arguments. Regarding the fecklessness of European diplomacy, and the causes of the First World War, I think that Buchanan is on solid ground. Other researchers before Buchanan have found the First World War to have been an avoidable tragedy that the European states should have been able to avoid. Buchanan's Second World War arguments are somewhat more problematic. //

Buchanan makes a pretty good case that Hitler was an opportunist, and that he was not without justification in seeking return of the Sudetenland and of Bohemia. Had he stopped there, and negotiated return of Danzig without war (which Buchanan says would have happened absent the British guaranty) we might be living in a very different world. Who can say?

Personally, I still think that Hitler was determined to fight a bloody war against Russia and persecute the Jews and other nationalities and ethnicities that he hated. Ultimately, it seems that Hitler was bound to fight such a war, but Buchanan makes some case that the world might have been better had Germany and Russia fought their war without the Western Allies being involved. Each reader must decide for him or her self. I don't accept this thesis. //

Mr. Buchanan's most insightful analysis is at the very end of this piece. He argues, as discussed above, that inept European diplomacy in which Great Powers went to war for non-vital reasons, was the cause of the World Wars. He then contrasts this with US diplomacy from World War I to the end of the Cold War. During this time American leaders refused to be easily drawn into conflicts and joined the World Wars only in their latter stages (particularly the First) thereby avoiding in significant degree, the horrendous casualties that many others suffered. Even more significantly, once America became the leading world power, American diplomacy repeatedly avoided war-starting confrontations by refusing, not without anguish, to fight wars for non-vital interests to America. Hence America's refusal to fight wars over Soviet interventions in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, or even the Cuban Missile Crisis. The contrast between the success of America in winning the Cold War without a World War (albeit with some sizable errors such as Vietnam) and European fecklessness in managing to start two world wars in 25 years, is stark. This is a truly fascinating insight which in my opinion is the major contribution of this book.

I've talked now about Discworld's original hardbacks, and their original paperbacks. To briefly recap, both used the same two illustrators for the entire run.

For the first time in recorded history, the workforce has reached what Abraham Maslow called “self-actualization” — and it changes everything about how to lead an effective organization! Author Ben Ortlip codifies workplace cultures for some of the most admired companies in the world. In this book, he shares the framework that enables leaders to inspire today’s workers, attract top talent, and build sustainable culture.
· Become a leader who codifies culture
· Master the 3Motivators: Craft, Cause & Community
· Quantify the value of culture at your organization in terms of actual dollars
· Discover the unique drivers of culture where you work
Culture is no longer a nebulous concept or an elusive vibe —it’s a new operational discipline that all great organizations manage with scrutiny and vigilance. Culture is the new leadership.

This is the project site for Evergreen, highly-scalable software for libraries that helps library patrons find library materials, and helps libraries manage, catalog, and circulate those materials, no matter how large or complex the libraries.

Evergreen is open source software, licensed under the GNU GPL, version 2 or later.

MAD ISSUE #148

Over My Shoulder
John Walker's Reading List