Fall books for conservatives

Human Events, Nov 17, 2003 by Rubin, Jeff

This book sets out appalling and persuasive evidence that school shooters are only the tip of the iceberg: Childbearing attitudes and practices that are accepted as axiomatic almost everywhere these days are actually crippling our children and jeopardizing our future as a nation.

Drawing on examples that every one of us sees daily in our neighborhoods and in restaurants and stores, Shaw demonstrates how our culture raises children to be selfish, insular, materialistic, ungrateful, and dismissive of our culture and heritage as Americans and free people. He explores the roots of this disaster in childrearing, proving that it is not a result of fashionable causes such as poverty, the inner city, or racial discrimination.

Along the way, Shaw reinforces with solid evidence some basic conservative truths that the secular culture has forgotten-such as the essential connection between a good marriage and emotionally healthy children, the necessity for sensible discipline, and much more.

Shaw also lays out a way that you can raise happy, loving, productive children who make their parents happy instead of causing them embarrassment in public and worry for their future. He gives you in these pages a blueprint to combat the toxic elements of our culture: the pressures it puts on parents, the absence of relaxed family time, the outright abandonment of the traditional values of honesty and effort, the devastating impact of media saturation, and the consumerism that pushes constantly to increase our children's acquisitive urge.

Arts and Sciences

Charles Murray, author of the controversial Losing Ground and The Bell Curve, is once again igniting controversy with Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 (Harper)-a fascinating attempt to explain why great human accomplishment arises-and why it declines.

The heart of Human Accomplishment is a series of enthralling chapters: on the giants in the arts and what sets them apart from the merely great; on the differences between great achievement in the arts and in the sciences; on the patterns and trajectories of accomplishment across time and geography; among other topics.

Straightforwardly and undogmatically, Murray takes on some controversial questions, including why an overwhelming proportion of the significant figures in the arts and sciences come from what used to be called Christendom; why 98% of history's greatest achievers were males; why the level of accomplishment has varied even within Europe, with a few countries-and a few regions within countries-producing the bulk of the significant figures; and why, with the rise of relativism and subjectivism, the West is rapidly losing its ability to generate enduring artistic and scientific creations.

Media Bias

Former CBS News journalist Bernard Goldberg's controversial book Bias removed any lingering doubt that the mainstream media is deeply, irredeemably tilted toward the Left. Now he follows up that bestseller with an even more scorching expose of the real aims and views of the media's most powerful figures. Arrogance: Rescuing America from the Media Elite (Warner) goes far beyond simply identifying bias. In it, Goldberg once again fearlessly names names and explains why media titans not only remain in denial about the prevalence of liberal bias in news reporting, but are now advancing the fanciful claim that the media are actually biased toward conservatives!