Terry

With all the talk now of "what the founders would think," Gordon Wood is an invaluable resource. In this thorough but highly readable book, Wood examines what the early leaders thought and did about issues of their day, and he eschews calling on them to answer questions they couldn't conceive of arising. Still, it is clear the founders argued as virulently on as many crucial issues as today's politicians. Though at a higher intellectual level.

Thoreau typically gets reduced to some inspirational quotes or elevated to near-sainthood. Robert Sullivan does an excellent job of locating the real man: a practical, down-to-earth guy - no luddite, no recluse - who took on the seemingly inherent wokaholism and acquisitiveness in the American spirit. He did so with a light, satirical wit, one he did not hesitate to aim at his own foibles.

A Father leaving his young family for another man isn't so promising a premise. Leaving for the greatest rabbinical mind of his generation better captures both the intellectual fervor & doomed essence of this relationship. Top it off with a reunion dinner in Tel Aviv with his now-grown sons that comes off like truth itself and you have a concise and elegant gem of a novel. - Terry

Robinson delivers a humanist attack on the cultural-intellectual nexus of Darwin and Freud and seeks to rehabilitate that of Puritanism and John Calvin. With brilliant style and a withering sardonic wit, Robinson argues that the values of democracy, social justice, and human community were expanded under the latter and eclipsed under the former. Particularly surprising to me was her refusal to buy into the common argument that Darwin was innocent of Social Darwinism. Obviously there is a lot more to the discussion than this 1998 work, but to my mind Robinson has given Darwin in particular (she mostly just shreds Freud) a relentless run around the court. - Terry

My favorite political writer goes to Germany for a clear look at Social Democracy. The heavily unionized workforce pays somewhat higher taxes but still has a higher personal savings rate, produces a trade surplus, and earns six weeks vacation in the process. Their taxes buy healthcare, education, and rapid transit, items that raise quality of life, in contrast to the US, where our rising taxes buy us - well, that seems to be the problem, doesn't it?