WHAT TO READ 2016

Happy New Year! And welcome to the fifth annual TTP What to Read.

We initiated this tradition with a list of the books I read and recommended in 2012, the first What to Read. That was followed a year later with What to Read 2013, then What to Read 2014, and What to Read 2015 a year ago.

Each of the links below are to the Kindle edition on Amazon, containing multiple comments and quotes.  I read all of these on my iPad.

I kept the list not to all the books I read this year, but to a baker’s dozen of those I thought would be of real interest to TTPers. There are several I think it quite important for you to consider.

I’m sure you’ll find at least one or two fascinating either for yourself or someone you care for. Or a regressive libtard you want to educate and/or infuriate.

And, please let us know on the Forum what books rang your bell this year. Here we go.

First we’re going to focus on Islam.  We start with:

Enhanced Interrogation: Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying To Destroy America, by James Mitchell.  The author ran “enhanced interrogation” (EIT) of the perpetrators of 9/11, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, for the CIA.  It is fascinating on a number of levels.

You’ll learn how amazingly sophisticated the EIT methods were – you’ll get a whole new level of appreciation for the CIA CounterTerrorism program.  And you’ll also be infuriated at times by the bureaucracy of it all.

What especially will enrage you is the willful perfidy of Dems like Diane Feinstein and of course the Enemedia who demonized the program.  They lied through their teeth.

While you’ll get startling tidbits like it wasn’t waterboarding that got KSM to talk – he snoringly fell sound asleep minutes after being waterboarded – what’s most important is learning how the minds of Jihadis really work.  Turns out it’s just as described in Marx and Mohammed (September 2005).

Islamic Fascism, by Hamel Abdel-Samad.  Samad is arguably the world’s foremost scholar on Islam, but is almost unknown to Americans as he writes in German.  This book has now been published in English, explaining the unity between the 7^th century ideology of Mohammed and the 20^th century ideology of Hitler and Mussolini.  “Marx and Mohammed” again, with deep scholarship and understanding of Classical Arabic.

*****

Then we have a trio of books on Islamic history:

The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews Under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain, by Darío Fernández-Morera.

The author, a Professor of History at Northwestern, will seriously upset you with his quotes of libtard historians eulogizing Islamic Spain as a Golden Age of multi-culti bliss – how can they make themselves so stupid? – and then please you by destroying the myth via incontrovertible historical sources.

Mohammed & Charlemagne Revisited: The History of a Controversy, and The Impact of Islam by Emmet Scott.

The “controversy” is the claim by a Belgian historian, Henri Pirenne (1862-1935), in the 1920s that the Dark Ages in Europe was not caused by the Fall of Rome but by Islamic Conquest.

That is, Gibbon was wrong.  Classical Roman Civilization did not collapse with Germanic invasions in the late 5^th century but continued to flourish until it was swept away by Arab Moslem conquest of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain in the late 7^th-early 8^th centuries.

Pirenne’s thesis was vehemently refuted by historians asserting Islamic Arabs were civilizers not destroyers.  Recent findings of archeology disprove this assertion.  Evidence abounds in scores, even hundreds of sites for a flourishing Classical/Christian civilization in the Middle East, North Africa and Spain until the late 600s-early 700s – and after that for some 200 years, there is nothing but devastation.

Historian Emmet Scott presents this evidence in the first volume above, then expands on it in his “Impact” sequel, concluding that Islam was catastrophic for the civilized world, plunging it into what became known as The Dark Ages.

These three books are true revisionist history at its evidential best.

*****

Now for a trio of books on economic history.

The first two are by Deirdre McCloskey, Professor of Economics and History at the University of Illinois:

Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World

Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World.

Actually, this is a trilogy, starting with The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce, which for some reason is only in paperback and has no Kindle edition.

McCloskey’s tour de force is a solid historically-based moral defense of bourgeois or middle class values, ethics, and practices.  For 200 years, the purpose in life for most intellectuals and artists has been and is today to ridicule the bourgeoisie.  McCloskey makes her didactic analysis of modern economic history since the early 1600s enjoyably funny by mercilessly ridiculing the ridiculers.

She also makes short work of Marx and his contention that it is the accumulation of capital that creates “capitalism” (which for him was a term of derision).  Money is useless without ideas, innovations that can productively put it to work.  And such innovations cannot emerge without a public appreciation and ethical praise for them.

Thus, what created the modern world with an explosion of widespread prosperity such as history had never seen was a revolutionary public attitude towards wealth-creators that had never been seen before.  Ayn Rand would have been fascinated by McCloskey’s scholarship.  So will you.

The third of this trio is Innovation and Its Enemies: Why People Resist New Technologies by Calestous Juma.

The author is a very interesting man.  Born in Kenya on the shores of Lake Victoria, he lived and taught in Nairobi after earning science degrees in England.  Becoming an international expert in a variety of fields from biotechnology to agricultural development to property rights, he is now Professor of International Development at Harvard, and Director of Science, Technology, and Agricultural Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Professor Juma takes us on an enlightening tour of how things we take for granted – like coffee, printed books, electric light bulbs, tractors on farms, refrigeration, and recorded music – had to fight for their existence against bitter opposition.

Coffee was suppressed by European kings and printed books by Moslem sultans for the same reason – they made people think of new and thus seditious ideas.  Light bulbs were fought by the gaslight industry, tractors by those who raised and sold plough horses, refrigeration by the ice industry, recorded music by musician unions.

Today, opponents of transgenic or genetically modified crops or fish such as salmon are being demonized.  In each instance, Juma explains how these innovations overcame the vested interests obsoleted by Shumpeterian “creative destruction.”  It’s quite a struggle historically and today.

Ps:  I bought the Kindle version right after the book came out in August (08/16).  For some reason, Amazon now lists only the hardcover version.  I’ve requested the Kindle version be back online.

*****

Two books on Thomas Jefferson.

The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson, by David Barton.

American historian Barton begins by explaining the intellectual frauds used by academics who hate America and dedicate their careers to tearing down American heroes – e.g., deconstructionism, poststructuralism, modernism, minimalism, and academic collectivism.

Then he proceeds to methodically dismantle the lies academia and the enemedia propagandize about Jefferson – starting with the myth that he fathered a child with his black slave girl Sally Hemings.  E.g., Y-DNA paternity tests show only a connection from Jefferson’s uncle, Field – not from TJ himself.  The quite strong historical evidence is that the father of Sally’s child Eston was his younger brother Randolph.

The envious always enjoy maliciously lying about those greater than them – and there have been few greater men who have ever lived than Jefferson.  You’ll be well armed by Barton’s book whenever confronted by their malice.

Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates: The Forgotten War That Changed American History, by Brian Kilmeade.

I outlined this story ten years ago to the day (12/28/06) in Civilizational Confidence.  Kilmeade gives you the details with all the drama, conflict, and adventure.  It would make a marvelous movie.  After all, it’s the origin of “to the shores of Tripoli” in the Marine Hymn.

Jefferson just didn’t write the most moral political document in history, The Declaration of Independence.  He was an extraordinary president, making America “America from sea to shining sea” buying 828,000 square miles for three cents an acre, the greatest real estate deal ever made; and standing up to Moslem enslaving cutthroats who were shaking us down for $1 million 1796 dollars a year in tribute.  What a hero.

*****

One book on China:  Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World, by Peter Navarro.

 Navarro is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at UC Irvine.  He’s in the news as Trump just named him as his National Advisor on Trade, driving the Chicoms up a tree.

Chicom China is beyond doubt the gravest military and national security threat facing America today.  Navarro explains just how serious the threat is.  America is Beijing’s Main Enemy, with the Chicoms far smarter than any foe we’ve ever faced.  You need to read this book to understand the threat and how it may be overcome.

*****

And lastly, one book on science: Evolving Ourselves: Redesigning the Future of Humanity–One Gene at a Time, by Juan Enriquez.

Enriquez is the founding director of the Life Sciences Project at Harvard Business School.  As such, he’s at the tip of the spear in genetics research.  He explains how we are evolving ourselves – that is, human behavior is inadvertently changing our genes faster than natural selection ever could, sometimes to our benefit, sometimes to our detriment.

Examples of the latter would be the recent explosions in autism, obesity, and allergies.  But then he goes positive, explaining how technological advances like CRISPR enable us to beneficially evolve ourselves on purpose – if we’re really careful.

Biotech and genetics are going to change our future like nothing else, so it’s a good idea to understand what’s coming down our pikes.

*****

OK, that’s it.  Happy reading!  And oh yes, if you don’t have this already in your library or on your iPad, the time is now:

The Jade Steps

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