Comments on: The Conservative Party’s summer reading list

By: UK Voter

UK Voter — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:00:41 +0000

I think you will find that our MP’s will have to employ the services of a firm of consultants to determine what they should read, then put this out to a consultation (public excluded) and then have a judicial review. At least they will be in paperback bu then, albeit they won’t be able to get them from John Lewis.

By: George Comney

George Comney — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 23:41:49 +0000

See the attached URL for what the Greeks did (and their faith continues to do) in 1919 to bring about 1922.

By: Don

Don — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:06:31 +0000

Hm, interesting discussion here for sure.
Josh Xiong has pretty good discussion of Kagan and China here:

http://joshxiong.com/?p=53

By: Richard Gowan

Richard Gowan — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:42:58 +0000

I think that there are still more out-and-out goodies on the list: Power, Morris, Mazower, Neustadt/May, Henderson, Wall, Rashid and Fowler. Wass sounds serious, Milton and Mount can both be fun…

Now, I agree that it is odd that the list emphasizes fun over, well, nearly all domestic policy and technology issues. Shirky should be there, although the omission that strikes me as most curious is Richard Sennett’s recent “The Craftsman”, which has a lot to say about Cameronian priorities like individual self-worth, etc.

And, if one assumes that a certain quantity of entertainment s acceptable, why no novels? These guys need some trash. Thatcher (it is said) approved the building of the new British Library because she was told that Michael Innes thrillers were rotting in the previous space. Personally, I would vastly prefer my future leaders to be wolfing down Henning Mankell and Tom Clancy than the too-public-school-for-public-school histories of Andrew Roberts.

And one more thing: was there a secret codicile recommending “audacity of Hope”?

By: Charlie Edwards

Charlie Edwards — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:05:40 +0000

Richard, I think it’s fair to say you have identified the nine or so books that are good – but that leaves 29 books left… my point being that it would have been better to get rid of most of them and instead have Shirky’s book etc etc

By: lewis

lewis — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:33:09 +0000

Hello,
I quite agree with you! If you liked Clay Shirky’s book, I wanted to tell you about a website http://www.morethansound.net where there is a dialogue between him and Daniel Goleman available called “Socially Intelligent Computing.” It is quite good and available on DVD or digital download.

By: Richard Gowan

Richard Gowan — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:49:18 +0000

I beg to differ: there is actually quite a lot of good stuff on this list. It certainly contains rather too much fire-and-forget military tomes (but I guess that’s all a large section of the party will ever read)and political chaff (“Cameron on Cameron”?).

But on Iraq, Patrick Cockburn is excellent, and his book is more up-to-date that Ricks. Freedman is also a sound choice. Daniel and I would argue that the inclusion of Ghani and Lockhart on state-building is a good call.

As far as “state of the world” tracts go, I think Kagan, Bobbitt and Zakaria are the obvious choices – and interestingly imply that the Tories are ready to imagine a post-US world. Charlie is right that there isn’t enough on China, but Emmot’s “The Rivals” is a straightforward primer for those who want to think in terms of an “Asia policy” embracing India and Japan too.

The most interesting choice of all is David Runciman’s new book on political hypocrisy: a serious bit of political thought by an author who does nuance and complex argument. There’s also a strong link between Runciman and Cass Sunstein, co-author of “Nudge” – Sunstein frequently pops up praising Runciman’s work.

It’s not such a bad list after all.