Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Theodore Roosevelt's Book Recommendations

There's quite a bit to cover in this small essay, but I'll have to get to that later.

Written in 1914, in the magazine 'The Outlook',Two Noteworthy Books on Democracy makes the following book recommendations:

THERE are books of which it is impossible to make an epitome, and which therefore it is impossible to review save in the way of calling attention to their excellence. Bryce's "American Commonwealth," Lowell's "Study of Representative Government in Europe," Thayer's "Study of Cavour," illustrate what is meant by this statement. Two new volumes, "Progressive Democracy," by Herbert Croly, and "Drift and Mastery," by Walter Lippmann, come in this category. No man who wishes seriously to study our present social, industrial, and political life with the view of guiding his thought and action so as to work for National betterment in the future can afford not to read these books through and through and to ponder and digest them.

Unfortunately, I must live my life so I can't solely devote time to reading every single book around. I have to go as time permits, just like this blog. But one of these books in particular - Progressive Democracy - is one that I have already blogged about.

Progressivism: The Dictatorship of the Constitution

It's nice to know who, and what, informs presidents. Under normal circumstances these would be the last things I'd ever want to read. But for the purposes of learning progressivism, we should all be informing ourselves.

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