The Best Books
of 2002
By Steven Martinovich
web
posted January 6, 2003
Conservatives had a lot of good reading material in 2002 and ESR
was lucky enough to spotlight many of the best books last year. Here,
in no particular order are the books that ESR's book editor thought
were at the head of the class
Complications
A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
By Atul Gawande
Metropolitan Books, 288 pgs.
As Atul Gawande points out, although medicine is a science it is also
a discipline practiced by human beings on other human beings. The pronouncements
of doctors have long-been given God-like status by their patients but
behind that stoic mask is a person who often relies on "habit, intuition,
and sometimes plain old guessing." It is with that in mind that Gawande
explores the surgeon's profession in Complications: A Surgeon's Notes
on an Imperfect Science, a series of interconnected essays that touch
on the performance of doctors, treatments and new technologies.
Read the rest of our review here.
Warrior
Politics
Why leadership demands a pagan ethos
By Robert D. Kaplan
Random House, 224 pgs.
Since the terrorist attacks last year there has been a serious evaluation
of what leadership means especially its implications during war. Every
age thinks that their world and time is somehow unique. Robert Kaplan
makes the case in his latest book Warrior Politics that leaders
from the past could successfully operate in 2002. Kaplan has made a career
out of doom and gloom. His dire warnings in the pages of The Atlantic
Monthly such as his groundbreaking 1994 essay "The Coming Anarchy"
and his eight previous books on travel, international affairs and the
future of the planet have become a major part of international relations
thinking.
Read the rest of our review here.
Our
Posthuman Future
Consequences of the biotechnology revolution
By Francis Fukuyama
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 256 pgs.
It would appear that history has not, in fact, ground to a halt. Back
in 1989, social philosopher Francis Fukuyama made the extraordinary claim
that because "the major alternatives to liberal democracy had exhausted
themselves," history had effectively come to an end. Ten years later,
he backpedaled by announcing that history wasn't at an end because science
continued to make progress. Fukuyama picks up that thread in Our Posthuman
Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution with a compellingly
argued new thesis.
Read the rest of our review here.
Against
the Dead Hand
The Uncertain Struggle for Global Capitalism
By Brink Lindsey
John Wiley & Sons, 368 pgs.
In Against the Dead Hand: The Uncertain Struggle for Global Capitalism,
Brink Lindsey argues that far from being a dangerous force, globalization
- or perhaps more accurately, global capitalism - promises to usher in
an era of unparalleled prosperity. In fact, he says at several points,
we are only in a transition period between an era of collectivism - the
dead hand that the book's title refers to - and a future of unrestrained
trade.
Read the rest of our review here.
The
Death Penalty
An American History
By Stuart Banner
Harvard University Press, 408 pgs.
For as long as there has been an America, there has been death penalty.
As Washington University law professor Stuart Banner aptly illustrates
in The Death Penalty: An American History, like the nation, the
death penalty has changed in both form and how it has been carried out.
Along with being the ultimate punishment that a society can levy for breaking
its laws, the death penalty also serves as a window to attitudes on everything
from religion to race.
Read the rest of our review here.
The
Sweetest Dream: A Novel
By Doris Lessing
HarperCollins, 496 pgs.
The most insightful critics of social and political movements may be those
who were once in their vanguard. Novelist Doris Lessing would certainly
qualify as an expert in counterculture movements. A communist in her youth
who abandoned three children when she moved to Africa, Lessing has long
been considered one of the preeminent voices of her peers. Among Lessing's
most recent projects was a three-part autobiography. As her author's notes
indicate, The Sweetest Dream: A Novel will take the place of that
third installment, one that will not be written in order to avoid hurting
those still alive to be hurt. Read the rest of our review here.
The
Pirate Hunter
The True Story of Captain Kidd
By Richard Zacks
Hyperion, 400 pgs.
Few names in naval history bring as much imagery to mind as the infamous
Captain William Kidd. In the centuries since his hanging in London for
the crimes of murder and piracy, Kidd's name has been ranked alongside
with that of Blackbeard for ruthlessness and avarice. Depictions of Kidd
follow the standard Hollywood formula of a colorfully dressed scoundrel
who could kill as easily as hoist a mug of rum. Attempting to turn aside
centuries of lore, author Richard Zacks argues in The Pirate Hunter:
The True Story of Captain Kidd that Kidd was far from a pirate.
Read the rest of our review here.
Medal
of Honor
Profiles of America's Military Heroes from the Civil War to the Present
By Allen Mikaelian
Hyperion Books, 320 pgs.
Although statistically speaking the Congressional Medal of Honor is not
the rarest military award that has been earned by soldiers - that distinction
goes to Britain's Victoria Cross - it has nonetheless gained a deserved
reputation as the ultimate symbol of courage in battle. Since its inception
in 1861, fewer than 3 500 soldiers have been awarded for, as Allen Mikaelian
writes, distinguishing themselves "conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity
at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty." Read the rest
of our review here.
Eisenhower:
A Soldier's Life
By Carlo D'Este
Henry Holt & Company, 824 pgs.
It took the Second World War to rescue the careers of both Dwight D. Eisenhower
and Winston Churchill, two of the most famous personalities of that conflict.
Like Churchill, who had desired the ultimate prize of leadership but could
never quite reach it, Eisenhower's career before the war was languishing.
Sitting at the rank of lieutenant colonel at the age of 50, Eisenhower's
military career, it seemed, would be a solid but uneventful journey. The
outbreak of war changed all of that. Less than three and a half years
after America's entry into the war, Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander
of Allied Forces in Europe and held the rank of five star general. Read
the rest of our review here.
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