Install
Culture and society
Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand's 1957 novel in which the creative minds of a nation go on strike, an epic dramatization of her philosophy of rational self-interest. Coming Apart Charles Murray's 2012 study of a growing divide between a new upper class and a new lower class in industry, marriage and community life. Common Sense Thomas Paine's 1776 pamphlet that argued plainly for American independence and the end of monarchy, and persuaded a public. Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler's 1940 novel of an Old Bolshevik who is imprisoned and made to confess, an inside view of the Moscow show trials. God and Man at Yale William F. Buckley Jr.'s 1951 debut, charging that Yale taught collectivism and hostility to religion while claiming academic freedom. Intellectuals and Society Thomas Sowell's 2009 analysis of intellectuals as people whose product is ideas, who face no accountability for being wrong. Life at the Bottom Theodore Dalrymple's 2001 essays, drawn from his work as a prison and hospital doctor, on how elite ideas created a British underclass. Losing Ground Charles Murray's 1984 case that the War on Poverty's incentives left the poor worse off, which shaped the 1996 welfare reform. Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell's 1949 novel of a totalitarian state that controls truth itself, and the standard warning about surveillance and propaganda. Slouching Towards Gomorrah Robert Bork's 1996 pessimistic account of how radical individualism and egalitarianism have corroded American culture and law. The Closing of the American Mind Allan Bloom's 1987 bestseller arguing that relativism and German philosophy emptied American universities and their students. The Fractured Republic Yuval Levin's 2016 history of postwar American politics, and a call to rebuild the middle layer of civil society. The Strange Death of Europe Douglas Murray's 2017 argument that Europe is losing itself through mass migration and a failure of cultural confidence. The Unheavenly City Edward Banfield's 1970 argument that urban problems stem largely from class culture and that many remedies fail because they misdiagnose. The Vision of the Anointed Thomas Sowell's 1995 study of how elite opinion makers push policies by claiming moral superiority and ignoring contrary evidence. What Is Marriage? Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson and Robert P. George's 2012 philosophical case for marriage as a union of a man and a woman.