Publisher's Book Picks
Looking for a good read? Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant reviews and recommends the latest books. Buy them today!
July 30, 2007 Issue
The Fred Factor: How Fred Thompson May Change the 08 Campaign
191 pages
In less that two months time Fred Thompson exploded onto the scene of the 2008 Presidential Race. The Fred Factor... How Fred Thompson May Change the Face of The '08 Campaign tracks this amazing political phenomenon in real time and lays out "what happens next" in dramatic fashion. Fred Thompson is recognizable to millions of Americans a star of television's "Law & Order," but his conservative record during his eight years as a Senator reveals what type of leader he really is.
Blowing Up Russia
Gibson Square 304 pages
Alexander Litvinenko is a 20-year veteran of the Russian military, achieving the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and serving in the KGB Department for the Analysis of Criminal Organizations, only to be arrested for disclosing a number of illegal orders he'd received and imprisoned. He escaped from Russia and received political asylum in Britain in May 2001. Yuri Felshtinsky studied history at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute and immigrated to America in 1978 where he obtained a doctorate in history from Rutgers. Felshtinsky is a recognized expert on Soviet Affairs and the other of several books on Russian history and politics. In Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within, Litvinenko and Felshtinsky collaborate to reveal a scathing accusation of the Russian special services, holding them responsible for acts of terror, kidnappings, contract killings, and efforts to steer Russia back to being a dictatorship. Blowing Up Russia also strenuously denounces the war in Chechnya for its deleterious toll on human life and freedom. A sobering, persuasively charged account, Blowing Up Russia is an essential text for Soviet Studies academic reference collections, and should be mandatory reading for anyone having political, cultural, or economic dealings with present-day Russia.
July 2, 2007 Issue
Mao: the Unknown Story
Anchor 864 pages
In the epilogue to her biography of Mao Tse-tung, Jung Chang and her husband and cowriter Jon Halliday lament that, "Today, Mao's portrait and his corpse still dominate Tiananmen Square in the heart of the Chinese capital." For Chang, author of Wild Swans, this fact is an affront, not just to history, but to decency. Mao: The Unknown Story does not contain a formal dedication, but it is clear that Chang is writing to honor the millions of Chinese who fell victim to Mao's drive for absolute power in his 50-plus-year struggle to dominate China and the 20th-century political landscape. From the outset, Chang and Halliday are determined to shatter the "myth" of Mao, and they succeed with the force, not just of moral outrage, but of facts. The result is a book, more indictment than portrait, that paints Mao as a brutal totalitarian, a thug, who unleashed Stalin-like purges of millions with relish and without compunction, all for his personal gain. Through the authors' unrelenting lens even his would-be heroism as the leader of the Long March and father of modern China is exposed as reckless opportunism, subjecting his charges to months of unnecessary hardship in order to maintain the upper hand over his rival, Chang Kuo-tao, an experienced military commander.
Red-Color News Soldier
Phaidon 316 pages
"Red-Color News Soldier" is the literal translation of the four Chinese characters printed on the armband first given to Li Zhensheng and his rebel group in Beijing at the end of 1966, eight months after the launch of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
June 18, 2007 Issue
The Invincible Quest
McClelland & Stewart 1168 pages
The Invincible Quest is an authoritative biography of one of the most accomplished and controversial leaders of the twentieth century. Beginning with Richard Nixon?s birth to Quaker parents in 1913 and ending with his death in 1994, Conrad Black traces Nixon?s career, assessing both his achievements and the evolution of popular and historical thinking about him since his death.
The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to Global Warming
Regnery Publishing, Inc. 288 pages
This latest installment in the P.I.G. series provides a provocative, entertaining, and well-documented expose of some of the most shamelessly politicized pseudo-science we are likely to see in our relatively cool lifetimes.
June 4, 2007 Issue
Freedomnomics
Regnery Publishing, Inc. 256 pages
Freedomnomics is everything you wanted to know about the world but didn't know economics could tell you. Economist and bestselling author John Lott shows the logic of free market economics through clear and hard-hitting examples.
Exposing The Real Che Guevara
Sentinel 256 pages
Nearly four decades after his death, it?s impossible to avoid the image of Ernesto ?Che? Guevara everywhere from T-shirts to cartoons. Liberals consider Che a revolutionary martyr who gave his life to help the poor of Latin America. Time named him one of the one hundred most influential people of the last century. And a major Hollywood movie is about to lionize him to a new generation. The reality, as we learn from Cuban exile Humberto Fontova, is that Che wasn?t really a gentle soul and a selfless hero. He was a violent Communist who thought nothing of firing a gun into the stomach of a woman six months pregnant whose only crime was that her family opposed him. And he was a hypocrite who lusted after material luxuries while cultivating his image as a man of the people. Fontova reveals that Che openly talked about his desire to use nuclear weapons against New York City. Such was Che?s bloodthirsty hatred that Fontova considers him the godfather of modern terrorism. Exposing the Real Che Guevara is based on scores of interviews with survivors of Che?s atrocities as well as the American CIA agent who interrogated Che just hours before the Bolivian government executed him.
May 21, 2007 Issue
Dangerous Book For Boys
Harper Collins Canada 400 pages
How many other books will help you thrash someone at conkers, race your own go-cart, and identify the best quotations from Shakespeare? The Dangerous Book for Boys gives you facts and figures at your fingertips ? swot up on the solar system, learn about famous battles and read inspiring stories of incredible courage and bravery. Teach your old dog new tricks. Make a pinhole camera. Understand the laws of cricket. There's a whole world out there: with this book, anyone can get out and explore it. The Dangerous Book for Boys is written with the verve and passion that readers of Conn Iggulden's number one bestselling novels have come to expect. This book, his first non-fiction work, has been written with his brother as a celebration of the long summers of their youth and as a compendium of information so vital to men of all ages. Lavishly designed and fully illustrated in colour and black and white throughout. Chapters in The Dangerous Book for Boys include: The Seven Ancient Wonders of the World, Conkers, Laws of Football, Dinosaurs, Fishing, Juggling, Timers and Tripwires, Kings and Queens, Famous Battles, Spies, Making Crystals, Insects and Spiders, Astronomy, Girls, The Golden Age of Piracy, Secret Inks, Patron Saints of Britain, Skimming Stones, Dog Tricks, Making a Periscope, Coin Tricks, Marbles, Artillery, The Origin of Words and The Solar System.
A Mormon in the White House?
Regnery Publishing, Inc. 256 pages
A Mormon in the White House? is the first book on Mitt Romney, his unusual faith story, and his viability as a Republican presidential nominee. Inside are exclusive interviews with the governor, his family, and closest associates, mixed with candid conversations with some of the country's shrewdest political observers and Christian leaders. Radio host and blogger Hugh Hewitt sets out to explain Romney, his faith, and the importance of that debate in a headline-making and election-shaping opening shot in the campaign before the campaign.
May 7, 2007 Issue
The Volunteer
McClelland & Stewart 296 pages
The riveting story of a Canadian who serves as a senior officer in Israel?s legendary Mossad. In 1982 a young Michael Ross joins the legion of Canadian twenty-somethings backpacking in Europe. Through happenstance, he winds up working on a Kibbutz in Israel, where he falls in love with the land and its ancient, multi-layered history. He immerses himself in Israeli culture, converts to Judaism, and adopts his new country?s struggle for survival as his own, joining the Israel Defence Force and eventually Mossad?s most elite and storied covert-operations unit, Caesaria. For seven-and-a-half years, Ross worked as an undercover agent ? a classic spy. In The Volunteer, he describes his role in missions to foil attempts by Syria, Libya, and Iran to acquire advanced weapons technology. He tells of his part in the capture of three senior al Qaeda operatives who masterminded the 1998 attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; a joint Mossad-FBI operation that uncovered a senior Hezbollah terrorist based in the United States; and a mission to South Africa in which he intercepted Iranian agents seeking to expand their country?s military arsenal; and two-and-a-half years as Mossad?s Counterterrorism Liaison Officer to the CIA and FBI. Many of the operations Ross describes have never before been revealed to the public.
Indoctrination U
Encounter Books 175 pages
In 2003, David Horowitz began a campaign to promote intellectual diversity and a return to academic standards in American universities. To achieve these goals he devised an Academic Bill of Rights and created a national student movement with chapters on 160 college campuses. Take No Prisoners is a riveting account of the reaction to Horowitz's campaign by professor unions and academic associations, whose leaderships have been taken over by the political left.
April 23, 2007 Issue
Amazing Grace
HarperCollins Canada 304 pages
Amazing Grace tells the story of the remarkable life of the British abolitionist William Wilberforce (1759-1833). This accessible biography chronicles Wilberforce's extraordinary role as a human rights activist, cultural reformer, and member of Parliament. At the center of this heroic life was a passionate twenty-year fight to abolish the British slave trade, a battle Wilberforce won in 1807, as well as efforts to abolish slavery itself in the British colonies, a victory achieved just three days before his death in 1833. Metaxas discovers in this unsung hero a man of whom it can truly be said: he changed the world. Before Wilberforce, few thought slavery was wrong. After Wilberforce, most societies in the world came to see it as a great moral wrong. To mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade, HarperSanFrancisco and Bristol Bay Productions have joined together to commemorate the life of William Wilberforce with the feature-length film Amazing Grace and this companion biography, which provides a fuller account of the amazing life of this great man than can be captured on film. This account of Wilberforce's life will help many become acquainted with an exceptional man who was a hero to Abraham Lincoln and an inspiration to the anti-slavery movement in America.
Infidel
Free Press 368 pages
Hirsi Ali, internationally acclaimed for her book The Caged Virgin (2006) and her film depicting the oppression of Muslim women, which cost the life of her colleague Theo van Gogh, now offers a compelling memoir of her life. Stripped of her Dutch citizenship and threatened with the same fate as van Gogh, Hirsi Ali continues to defy conventions regarding Muslim women. She writes poignantly of growing up in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya in a strict Muslim family. She was subjected to female circumcision and brutal beatings by a mother who wanted her to conform to the obedience expected of women. With the rising influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Somalia, her ambitions were even more repressed. She defied a forced marriage and fled to the Netherlands, fighting for the rights of Muslim women and a more open practice of Islam. Her rising political prominence and outspokenness have made her a target of Islamic extremists. Hirsi Ali's spirited recollections and defense of women's rights to independence and self-expression are inspiring to women of all cultures.
Vanessa Bush
Copyright ? American Library Association. All rights reserved
April 9, 2007 Issue
Reflections on Islam : Ideas, Opinions, Arguments
Key Porter Books 256 pages
On September 11, 2001, four hijacked airplanes changed the world. Or did they? The 9/11 attacks shattered the modern illusion about Islam as a wholly peaceful faith. They raised the possibility that this seemingly new struggle between East and Westbetween secular democracy and Islamist theocracyis just the latest variant of a much older contest between Islam and the non-Islamic world that has been now simmering, now flaring up, for the last 1,400 years. If we have failed to see the skirmishes along Islams perimetersin Kashmir and Kosovo, in India and Pakistan, in Chechnya and Xinjiangit is simply because we have refused to look. In Reflections on Islam, award-winning author and columnist George Jonas explores a range of issues that have come to occupy our daily attention. Is there a difference between Islam and Islamism (and does it matter if there is)? Are we in the midst of a clash of civilizations? How is the confrontation between theocracy and democracy manifesting itself outside of the Middle East? Was it a mistake to invade Iraq, or simply a mistake to stay? At what point do liberal impulses on matters such as multiculturalism and immigration becomes short-sighted and dangerous? Witty, provocative, and eloquent, this collection of essayswritten between early 2001 and late 2006showcases Jonas at his best. Reflections on Islam should be required reading for anyone grappling with the defining issues of our age. Praise for George Jonas: . . . one of the very best writers of English in the country. . . I.M. Owen in Books in Canada . . . a clever and witty European whose mastery of English is not only flawless but elegant and daring. . . Bronwyn Drainie in The Globe and Mail . . .the closest thing to Alexander Pope we have. . . John Moore in the Vancouver SunSaturday Books
The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World's Largest Private Company
John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd. 208 pages
Most Canadians have never heard of Koch Industries - the world's largest private company. Its CEO, Charles Koch, isn't just a businessman, but a libertarian philosopher who has applied free-market thinking to making internal decisions in his company. This is his latest book.
March 26, 2007 Issue
Power Faith And Fantasy
WW Norton 672 pages
In this engaging if unbalanced survey, the author of the acclaimed Six Days of War finds continuity in U.S. relations with the Middle East from the early 19th-century war against the Barbary pirates to today's Iraq war. As America's power grew, he contends, strategic considerations became complicatedby the region's religious significance, especially to the Protestant missionaries whose interests drove U.S. policyin the 19th century and who championed a Jewish state in Palestine long before the Zionist movement took up that cause. Meanwhile, Oren notes, Americans' romantic fantasies about the Muslim world (as expressed in Mideast-themed movies) have repeatedly run aground on stubborn, squalid realities, most recently in the Iraq fiasco. Oren dwells on the pre-WWII era, when U.S.-Mideast relations were of little significance. The postwar period, when these relations were central to world affairs, gets shoehorned into 127 hasty pages, and the emphasis on continuity gives short shrift to the new and crucial role of oil in U.S. policy making. Oren's treatment views this history almost entirely through American eyes; the U.S. comes off as usually well intentioned and idealistic, if often confused and confounded by regional complexities. Oren's is a fluent, comprehensive narrative of two centuries of entanglement, but it's analytically disappointing. Photos.
Leviathan on the Right : How the Rise of Big Government Conseratism Threatens Our Freedom and Our Future
Cato Institute 320 pages
In this thorough political analysis, Tanner examines the transformation of conservative doctrine in America, decrying the movement towards big-government spending. Since being elected, George W. Bush has allowed the largest expansion of government spending since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society (when domestic spending increased by 27%). Today, polls report that 55% of the public consider the GOP to be the party of big government. According to Tanner, this shift is not circumstantial, a result of post-9/11 considerations, but rather a fundamental shift in the conservative paradigm. The new Republican Party is unconcerned with traditional conservative thinking-the kind propounded not just by long-standing luminaries as Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill, but by Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater. Articulate and incisive, Tanner's critique provides a helpful overview of the issues facing conservatives today and an introduction to the myriad facets of contemporary conservative thinking-from national-greatness conservatives to technophiles to compassionate conservatism. Published by the Cato institute, a libertarian think tank, the ideological agenda is obvious-the book is dedicated to exposing the failures of big-government (i.e., anti-libertarian) policies-but Tanner's arguments are considerate and well-researched, and his optimistic belief in a return to small-government conservatism is largely appealing.
March 12, 2007 Issue
French Kiss: Stephen Harper's Blind Date With Quebec
Knopf Canada 288 pages
Chantal H?bert?s first book is both a post-mortem of the Canadian federation that died on January 23, 2006, the night of the last federal election, as well as a brilliant examination of our changing political future, one that involves living with Quebec rather than just wooing it.
The Long Road Back: The Conservative Journey, 1993-2006
Harper Collins Canada 224 pages
Hugh Segal - whose intellect, understanding and passion for Canadian politics has made him one of our most read and respected policy pundits - wonders if Canadians are still committed to the "default" reality. That's when voters choose the Liberals "the default position" because it's the least harmful option available and offers the greatest comfort level. When a Diefenbaker or a Mulroney, or perhaps now a Harper, manages to break through, the ultimate voter backlash suggests that a Conservative Canada is an unnatural aberration that requires an immediate full-scale intervention. In a book that delivers an insider's cogent analysis of the Conservative Party's extreme makeover during the last decade, Hugh Segal looks at both the Liberal and Conservative forces that shaped the party's transformation. He reflects on Mulroney's partisan legacy and the Campbell, Charest and Clark wilderness years that followed. He charts the rise of Preston Manning's Reform Party and recounts how a Berlin-like wall between the Alliance and the old guard Progressive Conservatives was eventually demolished. And he looks at the careers of key players like Peter McKay, Jean Charest and Stephen Harper.
February 26, 2007 Issue
Whose War Is It?
Harper Collins Canada pages
What if a major earthquake devastated the west coast of North America, killing thousands of people, flattening entire cities and fracturing the economy? How would the Canadian government address the crisis when many of our already weakened forces are deployed in Kandahar or in supporting roles? Or suppose terrorists attacked the Toronto subway system during a convention of Canadian and American emergency-room physicians? Would our military have the manpower, equipment and technical resources to protect our citizens and visitors?
Granatstein says never mind hypothetical - and completely probable - threats; our military is incapable of dealing with current and ongoing crises that require well-trained, well-equipped and properly deployed troops, supported by a confident military policy. He argues that Canadians' once-vaunted role of peacekeeping is no longer relevant in a post-9/11 world, since recent missions, from Somalia to Kosovo to Afghanistan, are akin to war. Granatstein also takes Canadian attitudes to task, criticizing our increasing reluctance to support a military presence in countries such as Afghanistan.
Whose War Is It? asks the questions Canadians need answered right now:
- How can we negotiate with US policymakers when anti-American sentiment is affecting our military and foreign policies?
- Do multiculturalism and our immigration policy make us vulnerable to terrorist attacks?
- How can we protect our northern sovereignty most effectively?
- What should we do about a "pacifist" Quebec?
- Just what are Canada's national interests, and how can we advance them?
In the same tradition as his #1 bestseller Who Killed the Canadian Military?, Whose War Is It? is a hard-hitting, timely clarion call to arms.
Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism Is Hazardous to Your Health!
Nelson Current Books 256 pages
Tree-huggers may actually be squeezing the life out of the environment.
In a book that is alternately alarming, enlightening, ironic, and entertaining, award-winning journalist John Berlau explores the myriad ways in which shortsighted environmentalism actually endangers trees, wildlife, and people. In chapter after chapter, Berlau debunks myths and libels about:
* global warming and climate change
* the dangers of pesticides like DDT
* trees and pollution
* fuel economy and the auto industry
* the threat posed by asbestos
* the lifesaving role of dams and levees
* plans to "rewild" America
Mother Nature is not a gentle person, and Berlau's pointed reporting reveals the very real dangers to people and their environments when Eco-Freaks prevent us from restraining her.
February 12, 2007 Issue
BETRAYAL : France, the Arabs, and the Jews
Encounter Books 185 pages
David Pryce-Jones believes that France has done more damage to the Middle East than any other country. France encouraged the mass immigration of Arabs and that huge and growing minority in the country now believes that it has rights and claims which have not been met. This minority also believes that Israel should not exist. Middle East geo-politics are spreading from French soil to an increasingly Islamized Europe.
The Improving State of the World : Why We're Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Clean Planet
Cato Institute 450 pages
Relying on a wealth of data, Goklany shows how innovation, increases in affluence, and key institutions have combined to address environmental degradation that sometimes results from growth. The evidence on the use of cropland, trends in air pollution, and diverse experiences in water usage counters the gloomy outlook of some environmentalists. Goklany explains why the state of the world is improving and offers a realistic assessment of the sustainability of the human enterprise, setting priorities for dealing with such challenges as climate change.
January 29, 2007 Issue
On The Wealth of Nations
Atlantic Monthly Press 256 pages
Old and weighty as it is, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations remains the seminal work on the fundamentals of economics. Political satirist O'Rourke plumbs the hefty tome, examining the eighteenth-century text in relation to our modern economy, demonstrating the enduring wisdom and application of Smith's work. O'Rourke marvels at Smith's ability to cut to the marrow of economic concepts, the simplicity behind the notion of division of labor and self-interest. Despite the lack of personal introspection shown by authors of Smith's era, O'Rourke finds Smith's sense of humor shining through the long-winded writing typical of the time. In a discourse on the need for imported goods, Smith ponders the trading of French wine for English hardware to avoid an oversupply of pots and pans in the nation. Working without benefit of the graphs and jargon that modern-day economists employ, Smith analyzed the nation's early mercantilism and its benefit to society. In a highly accessible, often hilarious tone, O'Rourke parses Smith's notions of political and economic freedom. Readers well versed and not so well versed in economic theory will enjoy this delightful look at Smith's famous and famously dense work.
State of Fear
Harper Collins Canada 624 pages
If Crichton is right?if the scientific evidence for global warming is thin; if the environmental movement, ignoring science, has gone off track; if we live in what he in his Author?s Message calls a "State of Fear," a "near-hysterical preoccupation with safety that?s at best a waste of resources and a crimp on the human spirit, and at worst an invitation to totalitarianism"?then his extraordinary new thriller may in time be viewed as a landmark publication, both cautionary and prophetic. If he is wrong, then the novel will be remembered simply as another smart and robust, albeit preachy, addition to an astonishing writing career that has produced, among other works, Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, Disclosure and The Andromeda Strain. Crichton dramatizes his message by way of a frantic chase to prevent environmental terrorists from wreaking widespread destruction aimed at galvanizing the world against global warming. A team lead by MIT scientist/federal agent John Kenner crosses the globe to prevent the terrorists from calving a giant Antarctic iceberg; inducing terrible storms and flash floods in the US; and, using giant cavitators, causing a Pacific tidal wave. Behind the terrorists lurks the fantatical, fund-seeking chief of a mainstream environmental group; on Kenner?s team, most notably, is young attorney Peter Evans, aka everyman, whose typically liberal views on global warming chill as Kenner instructs him in the truth about the so-called crisis. The novel is dense with cliffhangers and chases and derring-do, while stuffed between these, mostly via Kenner?s dialogue, is a talky yet highly provocative survey of how Crichton thinks environmentalism has derailed. There are plenty of ready-to-film minor characters as well, from a karate-kicking beauty to a dimwitted, pro-environmentalist TV star who meets one of the nastiest fates in recent fiction. There?s a lot of message here, but fortunately Crichton knows how to write a thriller of cyclonic speed and intensity. Certainly one of the more unusual novels of the year for its high-level mix of education and entertainment, with a decidedly daring contrarian take, this take-no-prisoners consideration of environmentalism wrapped in extravagantly enjoyable pages is one of the most memorable novels of the year and is bound to be a #1 bestseller.
January 15, 2007 Issue
The Cure : How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care
Encounter Books 325 pages
The American health care system is in crisis. Skyrocketing costs and increasing bureaucracy have traumatized consumers and doctors alike. In The Cure, Dr. David Gratzer brings a dose of common sense to this over-regulated area of the American economy.
Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism
Basic Books 250 pages
Surprising proof that conservatives really are more compassionate--and more generous--than liberals We all know we should give to charity, but who really does? Approximately three-quarters of Americans give their time and money to various charities, churches, and causes; the other quarter of the population does not. Why has America split into two nations: givers and non-givers? Arthur Brooks, a top scholar of economics and public policy, has spent years researching this trend, and even he was surprised by what he found. In Who Cares, he demonstrates conclusively that conservatives really are compassionate-far more compassionate than their liberal foes. Strong families, church attendance, earned income (as opposed to state-subsidized income), and the belief that individuals, not government, offer the best solution to social ills-all of these factors determine how likely one is to give. Charity matters--not just to the givers and to the recipients, but to the nation as a whole. It is crucial to our prosperity, happiness, health, and our ability to govern ourselves as a free people. In Who Cares, Brooks outlines strategies for expanding the ranks of givers, for the good of all Americans.
December 18, 2006 Issue
A Bad Penny Always Comes Back
Walkerville Publishing 32 pages
In the last days of WWII, seven brave young RCAF men and their Lancaster, ?Bad Penny,? were chosen for a dangerous mission to help a country in need. As in the old expression, ?... like a bad penny, it keeps coming back? Bad Penny and her crew returned from their April 29th, 1945 flight over enemy territory to Holland where they ?bombed? the Dutch with food bundles. Their successful test run served to launch the Allies' ?Operation Manna;? over 11,000 tons of food was dropped in 10 days. A boy named Peter was one of the many Dutch children saved by Bad Penny and her crew. First time writer Glen Mitchell has done great justice to this important moment in time with his charming and vibrant children?s book.
How the Granola-Crunching, Tree-Hugging Thug Huggers Are Wrecking Our Country
Creative Bound 205 pages
If this book doesn't get your blood boiling you may need a transfusion! Tough-minded, humorous, well-researched and proudly politically incorrect, this book will drive Canada's leftists absolutely crazy! In the unique style that has endeared him to one of Canada's largest and most loyal radio audiences, best-selling author Lowell Green launches an all-out expos? on those Canadians he says are wrecking our country. He tackles issues ranging from our dangerous refugee, immigration and multicultural policies to the soft-on-crime-gang with their needle and crack-pipe handouts, the Kyoto Accord, Canada's homeless "industry," and much more. Warning: This book is not for the faint of heart; some of the revelations here are shocking. This is a wake-up call for Canadians, by the country's most experienced radio broadcaster, a man with his finger on the pulse of the country he loves. Buckle up!
December 4, 2006 Issue
Jihad and International Security
Palgrave 256 pages
The book explores the global jihad movement and its emergence in the latter half of the twentieth century. The book investigates the nature and extent of this threat; traces its religious and ideological roots; relevant history; the goals of the movement; who is fighting jihad; how they end up in the movement; how it is being funded and sponsored; and what nations, particularly the United States, one of the movement?s primary targets, are doing to counter the threat. The book, intended for the general public, assumes that the reader has only a minimal background of this compelling contemporary topic. While the authors tried to avoid using academic jargon, they have tried to source the book so that it could be used in political science, international relations, and defense and security studies courses.
The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister : Three Who Changed the World
Regnery Publishing, Inc. 448 pages
The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister is a sweeping, dramatic account of how three great figures changed the course of history, as told by John O'Sullivan, former editor of National Review and the Times of London, who knew all three and has conducted exclusive interviews that shed extraordinary new light on these giants of the twentieth century.
November 20, 2006 Issue
America Alone : The End of the World as We Know It
Regnery Publishing, Inc. 256 pages
Mark Steyn's new book hit number two on Amazon.ca's bestseller list last month, but Chapters-Indigo still hadn't deigned to put it on their shelves. Lucky Western Standard readers have already been treated to an exclusive excerpt.
October 23, 2006 Issue
Showdown with Nuclear Iran: Radical Islam's Messianic Mission to Destroy Israel and Cripple the United States
Nelson 288 pages
Is Iran serious about using nuclear weapons? Deadly serious, argues Michael Evans in Showdown with Nuclear Iran. He proves it not only with reports of the technical progress made by Iran, but with chilling analysis of the religious views of its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his apocalyptic visions.
"Aid and Comfort": Jane Fonda in North Vietnam
McFarland and Company 206 pages
"Aid and Comfort" is a book about Jane Fonda's sympathy for the Communists in the middle of the Vietnam War. The book details how Fonda became a powerful ally for the destruction of democracy?more useful than any weapon system. It?s worth reading for Canadians concerned about ?Taliban Jack? Layton.
October 9, 2006 Issue
Enemies: How America's Foes Steal Our Vital Secrets--and How We Let It Happen
Crown Forum 304 pages
Bill Gertz has long been a foreign affairs Cassandra, issuing warnings that the world foolishly ignored. Enemies--which explains how hostile espionage by China, Russia and other foes is at an all-time high--should be read with his unhappy track record of accuracy in mind.
The Rage and the Pride
Rizzoli 168 pages
Written in one sitting after 9/11, Oriana Fallaci's The Rage and the Pride was an awesome indictment of Islamic terrorism, and the rotting Eurabian culture that consents to its own destruction. Fallaci died in September, before seeing how this civilizational clash will end.
September 25, 2006 Issue
America Alone
Regnery 256 pages
Mark Steyn's new book will be out next month, and the Western Standard will have exclusive excerpts from it for your reading pleasure. In America Alone, Steyn claims that Europe is almost certainly a goner, and that America is the world's last, best hope for freedom.
Stars Appearing: The Galts' Vision of Canada
Jane Harris 186 pages
From the global to the local: another Western Standard writer, freelancer Jane Harris, has a new book out, too. Stars Appearing is about Sir Alexander Galt, a Father of Confederation who founded Lethbridge, and helped shape Canada at large.
September 11, 2006 Issue
Terror And Liberalism
W.W. Norton & Co. 216 pages
Not only conservatives support the war on terror, so do some liberals, including Paul Berman, who argues that terrorism is just another form of fascism. This point is obvious to conservatives, but it is rare thinking on the left, and Berman excoriates leftist apologists for terror, such as Noam Chomsky.
From the Gulag to the Killing Fields: Personal Accounts of Political Violence and Repression in Communist States
Intercollegiate Studies Institute 760 pages
Nazism was discredited after the Second World War, but Communism retains some cachet after the Cold War, at least in intellectual circles. That's sick; From the Gulag to the Killing Fields catalogues personal stories of atrocities committed under the Red banner.
Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror
Crown 368 pages
Not all soldiers in the war on terror work for an army; some are private contractors who perform security work for pay, or are even mercenaries doing particularly tough work. Licensed to Kill is a cold look at some of the hotspots where these hired guns are making a difference.
August 28, 2006 Issue
The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq
Free Press 400 pages
Fouad Ajami is a Muslim commentator who has moved beyond the hard left's debate about whether America should have liberated Iraq, to the more interesting question: what now? Instead of recycling media clich?s, The Foreigner's Gift actually visits Muslim lands and talks with everyone from American GI's to Shia leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat
Columbia University Press 328 pages
As Israel's war against Hezbollah shows, the nature of combat in the 21st century is much changed. Insurgents, Terrorists and Militias examines these changes, referring to battles like Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. The era of the tank formation is probably over.
Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts
Hearst 192 pages
Conspiracy theories abound about 9/11, perhaps because it's easier to cook up some alternative theory than to accept that people want to kill us. In Debunking 9/11 Myths, the editors of Popular Mechanics gather the world's top scientists to quash these kooky theories.
August 14, 2006 Issue
Governor Of The Northern Province
Viking 240 pages
What would happen if an African warlord moved to small-town Canada? How would he be treated in our country--and what would Canada's political class have to say about him? Governor of the Northern Province is an ironic novel based on this premise.
State Of Emergency: How Illegal Immigration is Destroying America
St. Martin's Press 304 pages
Pat Buchanan is not to every conservative's taste: he is a radical isolationist, and advocates ignoring the threat of terrorism overseas. But he has strong and critical views about immigration to the U.S., especially illegal immigration. Not all of his conclusions are valid, but his observations are.
Rebalanced and Revitalized: A Canada strong and free
Fraser Institute and Montreal Economic Institute 106 pages
Former Ontario premier Mike Harris and former Reform party leader Preston Manning have published their ideas for fixing government accountability. Some of the ideas are in synch with what the Conservative government has already done; some go further.
July 31, 2006 Issue
Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam
Atlantic Monthly Press 560 pages
Mark Bowden wrote the gripping Black Hawk Down, and now, in Guests of the Ayatollah, he brings his talents to what he calls America's first experience with Islamofascism--the taking hostage of 66 U.S. embassy staff by Iran that lasted from 1979 to 1981. This book is interesting in its own right, even more so after 9/11.
Honor: A History
Encounter Books 381 pages
This interesting history of the concept of honour traces the ideal through the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment and even into the battlefields of Vietnam. Bowman makes the case for honour, and links it to everything from morality to manners.
Space Race: The Epic Battle Between America and the Soviet Union for Dominion of Space
HarperCollins Canada 370 pages
Space Race is a riveting tale of the contest between the U.S. and the Soviet Union--and between their respective scientists, Wernher von Braun and Sergei Korolev. Von Braun was formerly Hitler's rocket scientist, whisked to the West after the war; Korolev himself was a prisoner in the Soviet gulag. A lively history.
July 3, 2006 Issue
In Defense of Hypocrisy: Picking Sides in the War on Virtue
Nelson Current Books 224 pages
Jeremy Lott is one of the continent's brightest young conservative writers, and he proves why in his surprising book, In Defense of Hypocrisy. Readers of the old Alberta Report will recognize his name. His argument: calling an imperfect moralist a hypocrite is often just a way of attacking the morals themselves.
Terrorist
Knopf 320 pages
Terrorist is about a half-Egyptian, half-Irish 18-year-old in New Jersey who falls under the thrall of a fanatic imam--a purposeless American-raised youth who finds purpose in jihadism. Updike is a master novelist, and this book couldn't be more timely for Canadian readers learning about our own homegrown terrorists.
Retaking the University: A Battle Plan
Encounter Books 200 pages
Retaking the University?s subtitle is "A Battle Plan," which is exactly what is needed to return academia to its proper roots as a place where truth is sought and taught, as opposed to the liveliest repository of some of mankind's worst ideas, such as Marxism. America is the case study, but Canadians should pay attention.
June 19, 2006 Issue
365 Manners Kids Should Know: Games, Activities, and Other Fun Ways to Help Children Learn Etiquette
Three Rivers Press 352 pages
Since time immemorial, adults have complained about "kids these days." But gum chewing and listening to Elvis have been replaced with far more serious acts of rebellion. Perhaps an antidote is 365 Manners Kids Should Know--basic manners, in everything from writing thank-you notes to how to behave at a funeral.
The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life
Regnery 303 pages
National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru is one of America's most articulate social conservatives. In The Party of Death, he makes a startling case: that there is a coherent political movement that can accurately be described as "pro-death." He described the U.S. Democrats, but Canadian Liberals and NDP-ers are no different.
Lincoln's Wrath: Fierce Mobs, Brilliant Scoundrels and a President's Mission to Destroy the Press
Sourcebooks 356 pages
Lincoln's Wrath is an interesting historical treatment of how Honest Abe fought with any newspapers that opposed his war--using provoked mobs to ransack newspapers, and the illiberal Confiscation Act to outright seize printing presses that dared to support the Confederacy. A timely read.
June 5, 2006 Issue
A Nation of Serfs?: How Canada's Political Culture Corrupts Canadian Values
John Wiley & Sons 272 pages
Western Standard readers already know and love Mark Milke, one of Canada's strongest voices against the excess of government. His new book, A Nation of Serfs?, documents the corrosive political culture in Canada and how it has made us all, in small and large ways, less free.
Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity : Get Out the Shovel--Why Everything You Know is Wrong
Hyperion 320 pages
John Stossel has made a specialty out of debunking junk science and junk economics. He's not particularly conservative, but he's called that because he exposes liberal baloney. It's amazing that he still has his job at ABC, and unsurprising that his type doesn't exist at the CBC.
Showdown : Why China Wants War with the United States
Regnery 226 pages
Does China want war with America? That awful question must be asked in the face of China's double-digit growth in spending on its armed forces, quantum leaps forward in technology, and massive international espionage program. Will Taiwan be the tripwire, or will oil?
May 22, 2006 Issue
Against Judicial Activism: The Decline of Freedom and Democracy in Canada
McGill-Queen's University Press 320 pages
Government?s medicare monopoly is such a sacred cow in Canada that only a bigger sacred cow could take it on. That bigger sacred cow was the Supreme Court in its Chaoulli decision. Now Rory Leishman bullishly takes on the Supreme Court itself, in Against Judicial Activism.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism
Regnery Books 221 pages
The title of the book--The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism--pretty much tells you what to expect here. It's a roundhouse rebuttal of how feminism has actually undone women in North America, including a list of the worst 10 lessons in TV?s Sex and the City. What a change of pace.
Defeating Jihad: How the War on Terror May Yet Be Won, in Spite of Ourselves
Regina Orthodox Press 355 pages
Defeating Jihad is not for those who prefer to fight euphemisms rather than enemies. "Had Scipio issued a rallying call for a 'War on Elephants,'" writes the author, "Hannibal would have marched into Rome. Had World War II been waged as a 'war against Blitzkrieg,' the Reich would still have 927 years to go." It's for turbohawks.
May 8, 2006 Issue
The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
Penguin Press 448 pages
Rudyard Kipling's poem, The White Man's Burden, is seen as a symbol of imperialist hauteur. This book by the same name argues that the anti-imperialist ideologues who populate the world's foreign aid industry are guilty of the same ethnocentrism.
Godless: the Church of Liberalism
Crown Forum 384 pages
Ann Coulter knows how to push the left's buttons, and her forthcoming new book, Godless, will surely do it again. Not only does Coulter defend religion against the secular left, she attacks secularism's high priest, Charles Darwin--heresy to liberals!
In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State
AEI Press 140 pages
Charles Murray and controversy go together like carrots and peas, such as his 1994 book on IQ called The Bell Curve. In Our Hands is Murray's plan to abolish welfare, and simply give the poor $10,000 a year each to start, and cut out the red tape that actually chokes the underclass.
April 24, 2006 Issue
The Force of Reason
Rizzoli 290 pages
After watching the World Trade Center crumble, and Muslim radicals rejoice, Oriana Fallaci wrote The Rage and the Pride, an indictment of Muslim radicalism that was changing Europe's once liberal character. The Force of Reason is her sequel. It is a grave warning to any liberals left in Eurabia.
Dreamland : How Canada's Pretend Foreign Policy Has Undermined Sovereignty
McGill-Queen's Press 200 pages
Roy Rempel's new book, Dreamland, is a scathing analysis of Canada's foreign policy, from a conservative point of view. It's worth reading in its own right, but even more so as Rempel was hired as a senior policy adviser to the Conservative government, just days after the book's publication.
Manliness
Yale University Press 304 pages
Could there be a more politically incorrect title for a book than Manliness? Harvey Mansfield tries to isolate what it is about men that makes them manly; he defines it as a combination of aggression, honour and reason. No wonder manliness has been banished from modern society--a loss.
April 10, 2006 Issue
Prayers for the Assassin
Scribner 416 pages
Prayers for the Assassin is a novel set in the near future ?America, after terrorists set off simultaneous nuclear explosions in New York, Washington and Mecca, and blame Israel for it. The U.S. is split between an Islamic state and a Christian remnant, and a neutral zone in Las Vegas. It?s eerie and readable.
Islamic Imperialism : A History
Yale University Press 288 pages
Fashionable leftists blame the West and our history of European imperialism as the ?root cause? of terrorism. But as Professor Efraim Karsh points out in Islamic Imperialism, Islam was the original--and very successful--imperial power, as Osama bin Laden?s promise to?recolonize Spain reminds us.
An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths
Nelson Current Books 289 pages
Glenn Reynolds is better known by his website?s name, instapundit.com. He?s a law professor in Tennessee and a prolific blogger, and his book, An Army of Davids, makes the case that technology, especially the Internet, has turned ordinary citizens into Davids able to slay big Goliaths--like CBS?s Dan Rather.
March 27, 2006 Issue
While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within
Doubleday 256 pages
Bruce Bawer agrees with Berlinski, exposing the growing subculture of European Islamism, where honour killings are commonplace and political assassinations are no longer rare. What is familiar, Bawer argues, is the response from the left: more appeasement talk, none of which works except to spur more demands.
Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis Is America's, Too
Crown Forum 288 pages
Europe isn?t the happy tourist destination full of museums and art galleries it once was. It?s a seething mix of racial ghettos, socialist decline and political Islamism. The continent that brought us the Holocaust is cooking up another calamity for the world, argues author Claire Berlinski.
The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties' Legacy to the Underclass
Encounter Books 256 pages
Big cities like Toronto and Vancouver--and smaller cities like Winnipeg and Regina--are starting to acquire some symptoms of New York in the early 1980s: crime-ridden, and full of fashionable social engineering that makes things worse. This book is a how-to and how-not-to for cities.
March 13, 2006 Issue
On Liberty
Penguin Classic 192 pages
Now is the perfect time to dust off John Stuart Mill?s On Liberty. Most freedoms--like freedom of speech--are ?negative? freedoms, or the right to be free from things, like interference from the government or your neighbour. That?s the point: freedoms only mean something when they have the power to trump other concerns, such as political correctness.
The New Thought Police: Inside the Left's Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds
Three Rivers Press 336 pages
The New Thought Police is written by Tammy Bruce, a liberal lesbian who gets it--that the real threat to liberals is the destruction of liberty, whether from our own state or from foreign fatwas. The perfect gift for your leftist friends.
Between Pacifism and Jihad: Just War and Christian Tradition
Intervarsity Press 196 pages
Between Pacifism and Jihad is an attempt to reconcile Christianity?s belief in turning the other cheek, and radical Islam?s unrelenting jihad.
February 27, 2006 Issue
Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming
Rowman & Littlefield 291 pages
Shattered Consensus is a great name for this book debunking the myths of global warming. The alleged scientific consensus has been the key way that environmentalists have shut down debate before it began: ?Everybody knows . . . ,? et cetera.
1776
Simon and Schuster 400 pages
David McCullough?s 1776 is a Pulitzer Prize?winning history of America?s independence. It?s a fascinating read for Canadians, chock full of maps and detailed biographical sketches of key American rebels. Our American friends are a remarkable breed.
February 13, 2006 Issue
Legacy Of Jihad Islamic Holy War And Fate Of Non Muslims
Prometheus 600 pages
At 600 pages, The Legacy of Jihad is no casual read--it's literally a historical reference book on the subject of Islamic political and military struggle. Author Andrew Bostom quotes extensively from the Koran and other primary Muslim documents to make his case and refute the media's standard multicultural lovey-dovey line.
Hollywood Nation: Left Coast Lies, Old Media Spin, and the New Media Revolution
Crown Forum 272 pages
Why does going to the movies often feel like watching a 90-minute campaign commercial for the left? Hollywood Nation goes much further than that question, and examines how Hollywood political ethics infiltrate into the news and "conventional wisdom," far afield from the world of silver-screen fiction.
Rebel in Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush
Crown Forum 224 pages
Rebel-in-Chief is conservative columnist Fred Barnes's tribute to President George W. Bush. It is chock full of surprising details, such as the president's voracious appetite for books. That's part of the story, though: Bush is so constantly underestimated that he often pulls off dramatic successes.
January 30, 2006 Issue
The War on Fun
Western Standard 142 pages
Allow me to plug my own book, The War on Fun. Smoking, fast food and SUVs might not be to everyone's taste, but that doesn't excuse the attempts to regulate or sue the companies responsible for them. Not only does that tread on our personal liberty, but it corrodes our sense of personal responsibility for the choices we make.
Disinformation : 22 Media Myths That Undermine the War on Terror
Regnery 275 pages
Disinformation is the military term for deliberately spreading false news to undermine your opponents. So it's a perfect description of what much of the liberal press does in regards to the war on terror. Miniter's book explodes myths about al Qaeda, Iraq and other conventional wisdom.
Vengeance
Harper Collins Canada 416 pages
George Jonas's Vengeance was the basis of Steven Spielberg's new movie, Munich-- the story of the PLO murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics, and the Israeli response to it. Vengeance was a good name for it; but Spielberg's adaptation goes too far to show the PLO terrorists in a sympathetic light.
January 23, 2006 Issue
Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild
Regnery 231 pages
During Monicagate, Democrats accused the right of hysterical anti-Clinton hatred. But such emotion pales next to the raw fury the left now feels for the right, and for George W. Bush in particular. Michelle Malkin--author of Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild--should know. As a conservative "woman of colour," she is the subject of much liberal venom.
Women Who Make the World Worse : and How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military, and Sports
Penguin 288 pages
Kate O'Beirne of the National Review has the credentials (and the gender) to write a book called Women Who Make the World Worse. Her book reviews feminists from Hillary Clinton to Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw character, and demonstrates that their antics have set back women--and men, too.
The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought
Penguin 256 pages
This book is for everyone who cringes when they hear the meaningless phrase, "season's greetings." The War on Christmas catalogues the sustained legal and political battle to deracinate Christmas of its Christianity. This war against freedom of expression should concern everyone, religious and secular alike.
December 26, 2005 Issue
The Pilgrimage Of Stephen Harper
ECW Press 221 pages
The Pilgrimage of Stephen Harper is probably not a book title that Conservative party strategists would have wanted for Lloyd Mackey's new biography. But Mackey writes about a real subject: how Harper has managed to keep together the party's coalition, and to defang the Liberal accusation of a "hidden agenda."
Confessions of An Innocent Man: Torture and Survival in a Saudi Prison
McClelland and Stewart 432 pages
Unlike Maher Arar and the Khadr terrorist family, William Sampson has not received lavish government attention and aid, nor a public inquiry. Sampson suffered torture at the hands of Saudi Arabia, and that is one regime Canada doesn't want to offend. His book is about heroism--and Canada's diplomatic cads.
Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy
Doubleday 272 pages
Noam Chomsky hates the U.S. millitary--but that hasn't stopped him from taking research grants from the Pentagon. Michael Moore screeches against capitalism--but owns stock in Halliburton. Ted Kennedy loves affirmative action--but gets exemptions for his own corporate interests. That's why the book is called Do As I Say.
December 12, 2005 Issue
Rescuing Canada's Right: Blueprint for A Conservative Revolution
John Wiley and Sons 282 pages
Western Standard readers will remember our cover story last year called "Rescuing Canada's Right," about how to turn the liberal tide in Canada. Authors Tasha Kheiriddin and Adam Daifallah have turned that essay into a full-fledged book, complete with a foreword by Mark Steyn.
The Limits of Participation: Members and Leaders in Canada's Reform Party
University of Calgary Press 224 pages
Dr. Faron Ellis is another familiar name to Western Standard readers--he is the PhD who conducted our groundbreaking poll on western alienation. This book is the most serious academic study on the Reform party to date, and is buttressed by enormous research, including polls of party members.
Mitchell: The Life of W.O. Mitchell: The Years of Fame, 1948-1998
Douglas Gibson Books 488 pages
Before the tuxedo-clad Giller prize, before the age of political correctness, there was W.O. Mitchell, a salty prairie author who made his name in the 1940s with Who Has Seen the Wind?. This is his definitive biography, written by his son and daughter-in-law, with equal parts of love and objectivity.
November 28, 2005 Issue
Under-exposed: What If Radiation Is Actually Good for You?
Laissez Faire Books 247 pages
There's junk science, and then there's the A-bomb of junk science--anti-radiation fearmongering. This contrarian book--Under-Exposed: What if Radiation is Actually Good for You?--shows how anti-nuclear paranoia has killed more people than radiation itself, including thousands of Russian women who aborted their babies after Chernobyl based on rumours.
Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming
Cato Institute 196 pages
Let's round out this week's Publisher's Picks with another junk-science buster--this one taking on the doomsayers of global warming. Sound and Fury is written by a climatologist who rebuts the myths of the Kyoto Protocol, while arguing that, even if there is some global warming, it would be a benefit to mankind.
The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Oil
Perseus Publishing 256 pages
A desperately needed rebuttal to the conventional wisdom that the world is going to run out of energy, The Bottomless Well examines some of the interesting paradoxes about energy--including that finding more energy is one of our greatest and most productive uses of energy.
November 14, 2005 Issue
Mao: the Unknown Story
Knopf 832 pages
Pierre Trudeau?s old love letter to communist China was recently published in that country. For a less apologetic view of the Communist system that killed more than Hitler and Stalin combined, read Mao: The Unknown Story. Why is this country the largest recipient of Canadian foreign aid?
Condi Vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race
Reganbooks 320 pages
Dick Morris is the strategist who rescued Bill Clinton in his 1996 election, and perfected ?triangulation?--moving the Democrats to the centre. Since then, he?s turned against the Clintons, and this book represents his dream match: Hillary Clinton vs. Condoleezza Rice in 2008.
My FBI: Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror
H.B. Fenn 352 pages
Speaking of the Clintons, how do you think it felt to be the head of the FBI--both reporting to, and investigating, the president? Louis Freeh?s memoirs will be an underground bestseller, but it won?t get the kind of official applause that a similar book criticizing a Republican president--say, Richard Nixon--would.
October 31, 2005 Issue
Beethoven's Mask
H.B. Fenn 416 pages
George Jonas is more than just a brilliant writer and a crystal-clear thinker. He was one of the handful of Canadian conservatives fighting the ideological culture wars during the 1970s and 1980s, when the cause of liberty seemed the most hopeless.
Unquiet Diplomacy
H.B. Fenn 256 pages
Paul Cellucci probably thought being appointed U.S. ambassador to Canada would be a relaxing post--then 9/11 happened, and Carolyn Parrish, and Paul Martin's reneging on ballistic missile defence, and the revival of the Liberal party's strategy of scapegoating the United States. This book is his memoirs.
On Bullshit
Princeton University Press 80 pages
This little book has a naughty name, but that's the only rude thing about it. On Bullshit is actually a scholarly discussion on the difference between outright lies and the blustery approach of saying anything to fake it through the moment. It's a quick read, and a useful one for understanding many politicians.
October 17, 2005 Issue
The Secret Wars of Judi Bari: A Car Bomb, the Fight for the Redwoods, and the End of Earth First
Encounter Books 261 pages
There are few more pathological expressions of left-wingism than the radical group Earth First! This biography tells the story of Judi Bari, whose bizarre mix of feminism, environmentalism and anti-war activism ended only when her car bomb exploded prematurely.
In Denial: Historians, Communism & Espionage
Encounter Books 316 pages
Nazi Germany wasn't just defeated as a military force, but as an ideology. Not so with its cousin, communism, which was defeated without either a military cataclysm, or a deep political cleansing. As In Denial shows us, the West's intellectuals still promote Marxism and deny its inhumanity in an act of denial comparable to Holocaust revisionism.
The Secret Wars of Judi Bari: A Car Bomb, the Fight for the Redwoods, and the End of Earth First
Encounter Books 261 pages
There are few more pathological expressions of left-wingism than the radical group Earth First! This biography tells the story of Judi Bari, whose bizarre mix of feminism, environmentalism and anti-war activism ended only when her car bomb exploded prematurely.
October 3, 2005 Issue
The Martyrs Oath : The Apprenticeship of a Homegrown Terrorist
John Wiley & Sons 288 pages
Stewart Bell is back with another must-read Canadian book on domestic security. This time, in The Martyr?s Oath, he documents how a young Muslim man, raised in middle-class Ontario, was recruited and trained by al Qaeda?and how he was trained for an attack bigger than 9/11.
It Takes a Parent: How the Culture of Pushover Parenting Is Hurting Our Kids--And What to Do About It
Putnam 272 pages
It Takes a Parent is a rebuttal to mushy New Age parenting advice, and the title itself is a rebuff to Hillary Clinton's book, It Takes a Village. Betsy Hart encourages parents not to countenance the scholastic fad that emphasizes self-esteem over discipline and achievement.
The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis
Regnery Publishing 209 pages
Pope Pius XII has been branded a Nazi collaborator, but this fact-packed book written by Rabbi David Dalin puts the lie to that, documenting the Pope's snubs of the Nazis and noting the number of Italian Jews that he saved?-more than any other righteous gentile during the Holocaust.
September 19, 2005 Issue
The Religions Next Door: What We Need to Know about Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam--And What Reporters Are Missing
Broadman and Holman 245 pages
The mainstream media is theologically illiterate. Normally that manifests itself in an anti-Christian bias. But, as Marvin Olasky points out in The Religions Next Door, it also shows up in uneducated comparisons amongst religions?like the post-liberal delusion that Islam and Christianity are the same.
Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left
National Book Network 256 pages
How can the North American far left?-radical feminists, atheists and Marxists-?make common cause with al Qaeda's apologists, who are themselves anti-feminists and illiberal theocrats? It's a good question, especially when it?s raised, as it is in Unholy Alliance, by a former lefty like David Horowitz.
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
Knopf 480 pages
It?s good to be wary of historical revisionism, which is often an Orwellian attempt to edit history into accord with today?s political fashions. That is generally avoided in 1491, which claims the Americas were more developed than we once thought?and that disease, not technology, undid them.
September 5, 2005 Issue
Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada
Douglas Gibson 432 pages
Stephen Harper is a private man with a tight circle of advisers and confidantes. William Johnson's book helps shed some light on the leader of the Opposition, and looks deeper than just the personality contests that animate most of the Ottawa press corps' coverage.
The Abolition of Britain: From Winston Churchill to Princess Diana
Encounter Books 330 pages
Peter Hitchens is less well known in Canada than his brother Christopher, the former Marxist who has renounced the left for its appeasement of Islamic terror. Peter's book, The Abolition of Britain, is on a related topic, and one that applies doubly so here in Canada.
Diversity: The Invention of a Concept
Encounter Books 335 pages
Diversity: The Invention of a Concept is a powerful rebuttal to politically correct quotas. It seeks to recapture the true meaning of the word "variety" and to debunk its newfangled spin, which locks in arbitrary quotas. It's hard to disagree that official diversity actually breeds a brittle uniformity.
August 22, 2005 Issue
Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis
Fairleigh Dickinson University Press 384 pages
The terrorist bombings in London were not the work of foreign terrorists, but radical, homegrown Islamo-fascists. Bat Ye?or?s terrifying analysis of ?Eurabia? demonstrates how Europe is becoming Arabian not only demographically, but politically, too.
Losing the New China: A Story of American Commerce, Desire and Betrayal
Encounter Books 253 pages
China?s sparkling skyscrapers and surging economy make it easy to forget that the country is fascist, and has ambitions of dominance that exceed its own borders. Ethan Gutmann points out that, as with Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, western businessmen and politicians are eager collaborators.
White Gold : The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and Islam's One Million White Slaves
Farrar, Straus and Giroux 336 pages
White Gold tells the history of the one-million European?and even some American?slaves captured by Islamic corsairs as they raided towns and ships for centuries. The history is given a personal touch through the memoirs of a British cabin boy, captured and enslaved for 23 years.
August 8, 2005 Issue
The Church and the Market : A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy
Lexington Books 239 pages
In The Church and the Market, Thomas Woods refutes the too-widely-held view that Catholicism, indeed Christian teaching, is hostile to free enterprise. This book will help all people of faith reconcile their personal altruism with market capitalism.
The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag
Harper Collins Canada 238 pages
Kang Chol-Hwan grew up in North Korea, and spent 10 years in its gulags, where the only things "pounded into me [were] about man's limitless capacity to be vicious," he writes in The Aquariums of Pyongyang. Now free in South Korea, Kang co-wrote the book with Pierre Rigoulot, a contributor to 1997's The Black Book of Communism.
Of philosophers and kings: Political philosophy in Shakespeare's Macbeth and King Lear
University of Toronto Press 405 pages
Every conservative should read Shakespeare--and every liberal needs to. University of Alberta professor and Western Standard buff Leon Craig is a Shakespeare expert. In Of Philosophers and Kings, Craig examines the political philosophy in two of the bard's best plays.
July 11, 2005 Issue
Israel in the World : Changing Lives Through Innovation
Wiedenfeld & Nicolson 227 pages
Israel in the World is a coffee-table book about everything except the Middle East conflict, which is the point. The thousands of journalists in Isreal have a prefab script of war and violence; this book highlights that little country's economic, scientific and artistic achievements. Foreword by Rupert Murdoch.
A Deficit Of Decency
Stroud and Hall 288 pages
Zell Miller gave the most electrifying speech at the Republican party's convention last year--blasting the Democrats for their soft-on-terror policies--even though he is, himself, a Democratic senator. In his book, A Deficit of Decency, the outspoken southerner describes his political philosophy and his political evolution.
Lance Armstrong's War : One Man's Battle Against Fate, Fame, Love, Death, Scandal, and a Few Other Rivals on the Road to the Tour de France
HarperCollins Canada 336 pages
Here's a break from politics. The Tour de France is a gruelling competition, and Lance Armstrong's unprecedented winning streak, against all odds, is a compelling story. Lance Armstrong's War tells the amazing story of how this Texas boy went on to beat the Europeans despite every setback--including a battle against cancer. Guaranteed to inspire.
June 27, 2005 Issue
Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy
Encounter Books 173 pages
Don?t think vote fraud is something that only happens in the third world. In Stealing Elections, John Fund, The Wall Street Journal?s top political guru, shows how prevalent it is throughout the U.S. Are we naive enough to think Canada is immune?
Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions
Ignatius Press 280 pages
Published just before Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, Truth and Tolerance is a good briefing on the new pope. It is also a manifesto of courage?the courage to speak unpopular truths in the face of overwhelming pressure, from pop culture and other fads, to temporize.
Cold Terror: How Canada Nurtures and Exports Terrorism Around the World
John Wiley & Sons 288 pages
I called Cold Terror the most important Canadian book of 2004, and now it's out in paperback. Written by Stewart Bell, one of Canada?s best investigative reporters, this book exposes how Canada, far from being a demilitarized zone, is actually a staging, recruiting and fundraising area for terrorists.
June 13, 2005 Issue
In Denial: Historians, Communism & Espionage
Encounter Books 316 pages
To call someone a Nazi is the ultimate insult. But why is communism still considered palatable in western universities, the media, and even Political parties? It is a variant of fascism, and has killed more innocents than Nazism did. In Denial is a well-named book about this revolting double standard.
Catching Light: Looking for God in the Movies
Eerdmans Publishing 402 pages
It's fair to call Hollywood an antithesis to religious faith. But there are exceptions, as Mel Gibson's The Passion proved last year. Catching Light looks for traces of religion in popular films, including surprising titles like The Godfather trilogy.
Ben the Bear and the Honey-Suckle Tree
Unite Our Dream Publications 24 pages
Ben the Bear and the Honey Suckle Tree is a children's book written by Western Standard reader Jay Conley of Saskatoon and illustrated by Steve Rabatich. It's been a quiet bestseller because of its simple but profound themes: personal responsibility and love.
May 30, 2005 Issue
One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture Is Eroding Self-Reliance
St. Martin's Press 320 pages
When did the word "therapy" change from an actual treatment for an illness to exploring one's feelings ad nauseam, particularly on a TV show, and often with a government subsidy? One Nation Under Therapy worries about the U.S., but the trend is further advanced here in Canada.
Inside North Korea: Diary of a Mad Place
Encounter Books 280 pages
Where are the world's bleeding hearts when you need them? North Korea is a prison nation so poor its citizens eat grass and electrical power is rationed; yet it boasts one of the world's largest armies and claims to have a nuclear bomb. Inside North Korea: Diary of a Mad Place makes it clear that both liberals and conservatives have reason to be ashamed of the world's risky inaction.
South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias
Regnery Publishing 256 pages
The title, South Park Conservatives, reads like an oxymoron--the adult cartoon, South Park, from which it takes its name is outrageously rude, if funny. But that's the point: there is a new generation of deliberately, provocatively, politically incorrect youth who love tweaking liberal sensibilities. That's who this book is about.
May 16, 2005 Issue
The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy
Crown Forum 288 pages
Hillary Clinton blamed a right-wing conspiracy for undoing her husband. But there really is a Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, and it nearly defeated Dubya last election. Byron York of the National Review does a very even-handed job documenting how the left has mobilized money, activists, celebrities, front groups and bile to try to stop the Republican march south of the border.
Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant
Regnery Publishing 229 pages
Fidel Castro has imprisoned or killed a greater percentage of his countrymen than did either Hitler or Stalin--so why does Jack Nicholson call him a "genius," Dan Rather call him "Cuba's Elvis" and the rest of Hollywood treat him like a saint? Cuban refugee Humberto Fontova asks and answers that embarrassing question.
Love and Responsibility
Ignatius Press 319 pages
There are many quickie commemorative books being published about Pope John Paul II. Love and Responsibility is a book he wrote more than 10 years ago that might be a more useful read than most. It deals with the Pope's views on love and sexuality, with a detail and thoughtfulness that would startle his knee-jerk critics from the sexual revolution.
May 2, 2005 Issue
Home-Alone America: The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Behavioral Drugs, and Other Parent Substitutes
Penguin 288 pages
With the federal Liberals proposing the nationalization of child care, it?s worth examining the unintended side-effects of outsourcing parenting to the state. This thoughtful book looks at the reality of kids without their parents, including the skyrocketing use of behavioural drugs for kids, underperformance in school and other ways kids cry out for their real moms and dads.
Taking Sex Differences Seriously
Encounter Books 374 pages
Part of the debate over child care is rooted in the larger debate over the roles of men and women in society. The utopian left has long asserted that there are no meaningful differences, other than what ?patriarchal? society has taught us. Taking Sex Differences Seriously is a good and scientific rebuttal to ideological feminism.
Alexis in Charterland
Epic Press 64 pages
Alexis in Charterland is the latest effort by Kenneth McDonald, a one-man conservative publishing machine. It?s not a book, it?s a 48-page booklet with appendices, but it?s effective and fun: a dialogue between an imaginary 22-year-old immigrant to Canada and his political science professor. Alexis is baffled by the charter?s illogic and the way it has been contorted; his professor has a tough time explaining it.
December 18, 2004 Issue
How the Granola-Crunching, Tree-Hugging Thug Huggers Are Wrecking Our Country
Creative Bound Inc pages
If this book doesn't get your blood boiling you may need a transfusion! Tough-minded, humorous, well-researched and proudly politically incorrect, this book will drive Canada's leftists absolutely crazy! In the unique style that has endeared him to one of Canada's largest and most loyal radio audiences, best-selling author Lowell Green launches an all-out expos? on those Canadians he says are wrecking our country. He tackles issues ranging from our dangerous refugee, immigration and multicultural policies to the soft-on-crime-gang with their needle and crack-pipe handouts, the Kyoto Accord, Canada's homeless "industry," and much more. Warning: This book is not for the faint of heart; some of the revelations here are shocking. This is a wake-up call for Canadians, by the country's most experienced radio broadcaster, a man with his finger on the pulse of the country he loves. Buckle up!
How the Granola-Crunching, Tree-Hugging Thug Huggers Are Wrecking Our Country
Creative Bound Inc pages
If this book doesn't get your blood boiling you may need a transfusion! Tough-minded, humorous, well-researched and proudly politically incorrect, this book will drive Canada's leftists absolutely crazy! In the unique style that has endeared him to one of Canada's largest and most loyal radio audiences, best-selling author Lowell Green launches an all-out expos? on those Canadians he says are wrecking our country. He tackles issues ranging from our dangerous refugee, immigration and multicultural policies to the soft-on-crime-gang with their needle and crack-pipe handouts, the Kyoto Accord, Canada's homeless "industry," and much more. Warning: This book is not for the faint of heart; some of the revelations here are shocking. This is a wake-up call for Canadians, by the country's most experienced radio broadcaster, a man with his finger on the pulse of the country he loves. Buckle up!
How the Granola-Crunching, Tree-Hugging Thug Huggers Are Wrecking Our Country
Creative Bound Inc pages
If this book doesn't get your blood boiling you may need a transfusion! Tough-minded, humorous, well-researched and proudly politically incorrect, this book will drive Canada's leftists absolutely crazy! In the unique style that has endeared him to one of Canada's largest and most loyal radio audiences, best-selling author Lowell Green launches an all-out expos? on those Canadians he says are wrecking our country. He tackles issues ranging from our dangerous refugee, immigration and multicultural policies to the soft-on-crime-gang with their needle and crack-pipe handouts, the Kyoto Accord, Canada's homeless "industry," and much more. Warning: This book is not for the faint of heart; some of the revelations here are shocking. This is a wake-up call for Canadians, by the country's most experienced radio broadcaster, a man with his finger on the pulse of the country he loves. Buckle up!