Yuval Levin

Well done book by a thoughtful conservative about what is wrong with America and what would help. He's very fair about leftist motivations and accomplishments and also gets into right-wing shortcomings and mistakes. He leaves no doubt that he's a conservative, but there's a strong feeling of fairness and even-handedness that I really respect. His basic diagnosis is that both left and right are too nostalgic about mid-twentieth century golden eras, (FDR and LBJ for the left and Ike and Reagan on the right). He feels that too much emphasis has gone to extreme ends of society, both the federal government on one hand and atomized individuals on the other hand. He advocates more power to state & local government and stuff like churches and labor unions and of course families. (Imagine, a conservative seeing something good about unions.)

What I didn't like about the book: humorless! Also, while I think he's remarkably generous to his political opponents' general theories, sometimes he gets a bit snarky to individual leftists (like Obama). Also, there seems to be an undercurrent of American exceptionalism - he never says "rah rah America" but there's a wisp of it in the background that I'm sensitive to and don't like.

That said, I'm super impressed with the way this book is done and I wish there were more like it coming from both sides. (All sides)… (mehr)

Great short book contrasting/comparing Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine as prototypes of AngloAmerican right and left wings. The author is a conservative but his treatment seems entirely fair and generous to me. People are what they are on that spectrum, and sometimes they move a bit, but this is the kind of valuable book that lets an open-minded person on either side understand a little better where people on the other side are coming from. It's fine to be a partisan but it's foolish to assume your adversaries are stupid, misinformed, or just plain evil.… (mehr)

Intriguing book about the modern origins of the debate between periodically "wiping the slate clean" as advocated by Thomas Paine and gradual, incremental reforms, as advocated by Edmund Burke. Apparently the two once dined together. I woiuld have like to be a fly on the wall to see such two great, opposing minds together.

In any event, the author clearly favors the more conservative philosophy of Edmund Burke. Thomas Payne apparently had a reputation as a bit of a "flame thrower. Levin tries to modulate that somewhat but it doesn't escape the pages.… (mehr)