"This post includes affiliate links for which I may make a small commission at no extra cost to you should you make a purchase."
The 10 Best Political Ideologies Books list have been recommended not only by normal readers but also by experts.
You’ll also find that these are top-ranking books on the US Amazon Best Sellers book list for the Political Ideologies category of books.
If any of the titles interest you, I’d recommend checking them out by clicking the “Check Price” button. It’ll take you to the authorized retailer website, where you’ll be able to see reviews and buy it.
Let’s take a look at the list of 10 Best Political Ideologies Books.
10 Best Political Ideologies Books
Now, let’s dive right into the list of 10 Best Political Ideologies Books, where we’ll provide a quick outline for each book.
1. Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell Review Summary
Sale
Basic Economics
The bestselling citizen’s guide to economics Basic Economics is a citizen’s guide to economics, written for those who want to understand how the economy works but have no interest in jargon or equations. Bestselling economist Thomas Sowell explains the general principles underlying different economic systems: capitalist, socialist, feudal, and so on. In readable language, he shows how to critique economic policies in terms of the incentives they create, rather than the goals they proclaim. With clear explanations of the entire field, from rent control and the rise and fall of businesses to the international balance of payments, this is the first book for anyone who wishes to understand how the economy functions. This fifth edition includes a new chapter explaining the reasons for large differences of wealth and income between nations. Drawing on lively examples from around the world and from centuries of history, Sowell explains basic economic principles for the general public in plain English.
2. Liberty Versus the Tyranny of Socialism: Controversial Essays by Walter E. Williams Review Summary
Liberty Versus the Tyranny of Socialism: Controversial Essays
In this selected collection of his syndicated newspaper columns, Walter Williams offers his sometimes controversial views on education, health, the environment, government, law and society, race, and a range of other topics. Although many of these essays focus on the growth of government and our loss of liberty, many others demonstrate how the tools of freemarket economics can be used to improve our lives in ways ordinary people can understand.
3. Capitalism and Freedom (40th Anniversary Edition) by Milton Friedman Review Summary
Sale
Capitalism and Freedom (40th Anniversary Edition)
Selected by the Times Literary Supplement as one of the “hundred most influential books since the war” How can we benefit from the promise of government while avoiding the threat it poses to individual freedom? In this classic book, Milton Friedman provides the definitive statement of his immensely influential economic philosophy–one in which competitive capitalism serves as both a device for achieving economic freedom and a necessary condition for political freedom. The result is an accessible text that has sold well over half a million copies in English, has been translated into eighteen languages, and shows every sign of becoming more and more influential as time goes on.
4. The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters by Tom Nichols Review Summary
Sale
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters
Technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism. Tom Nichols’ The Death of Expertise shows how this rejection of experts has occurred: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a customer satisfaction model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry into a 24 hour entertainment machine, among other reasons. Paradoxically, the increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated public, has instead created an army of ill informed and angry citizens who denounce intellectual achievement. When ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more than anyone else, democratic institutions themselves are in danger of falling either to populism or to technocracy or, in the worst case, a combination of both. An update to the 2017breakout hit, the paperback edition of The Death of Expertise provides a new foreword to cover the alarming exacerbation of these trends in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election. Judging from events on the ground since it first published, The Death of Expertise issues a warning about the stability and survival of modern democracy in the Information Age that is even more important today.
5. The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future by The Unabomber Review Summary
The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future
In 1971 Dr. Theodore Kaczynski rejected modern society and moved to a primitive cabin in the woods of Montana. There, he began building bombs, which he sent to professors and executives to express his disdain for modern society, and to work on his magnum opus, Industrial Society and Its Future, forever known to the world as the Unabomber Manifesto. Responsible for three deaths and more than twenty casualties over two decades, he was finally identifed and apprehended when his brother recognized his writing style while reading the ‘Unabomber Manifesto.’ The piece, written under the pseudonym FC (Freedom Club) was published in the New York Times after his promise to cease the bombing if a major publication printed it in its entirety.
6. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick Review Summary
Sale
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
An eye-opening account of life inside North Korea –a closed world of increasing global importance–hailed as a “tour de force of meticulous reporting” ( The New York Review of Books ) NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST In this landmark addition to the literature of totalitarianism, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick follows the lives of six North Korean citizens over fifteen years–a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il (the father of Kim Jong-un), and a devastating famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most repressive regime today–an Orwellian world that is by choice not connected to the Internet, where displays of affection are punished, informants are rewarded, and an offhand remark can send a person to the gulag for life. She takes us deep inside the country, beyond the reach of government censors, and through meticulous and sensitive reporting we see her subjects fall in love, raise families, nurture ambitions, and struggle for survival. One by one, we witness their profound, life-altering disillusionment with the government and their realization that, rather than providing them with lives of abundance, their country has betrayed them. Praise for Nothing to Envy “Provocative . . . offers extensive evidence of the author’s deep knowledge of this country while keeping its sights firmly on individual stories and human details.” — The New York Times “Deeply moving . . . The personal stories are related with novelistic detail.” — The Wall Street Journal “A tour de force of meticulous reporting.” — The New York Review of Books “Excellent . . . humanizes a downtrodden, long-suffering people whose individual lives, hopes and dreams are so little known abroad.” — San Francisco Chronicle “The narrow boundaries of our knowledge have expanded radically with the publication of Nothing to Envy. . . . Elegantly structured and written, [it] is a groundbreaking work of literary nonfiction.” — John Delury, Slate “At times a page-turner, at others an intimate study in totalitarian psychology.” — The Philadelphia Inquirer
7. The Law by Frederic Bastiat Review Summary
The Law
Here, in this 1850 classic, a powerful refutation of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto, published two years earlier, Bastiat discusses: what is law?, why socialism constitutes legal plunder, the proper function of the law, the law and morality, “the vicious circle of socialism”, and the basis for stable government. French political libertarian and economist CLAUDE FRÉDÉRIC BASTIAT (1801-1850) was one of the most eloquent champions of the concept that property rights and individual freedoms flowed from natural law.
8. The Republic of Plato by Allan Bloom Review Summary
Sale
The Republic of Plato
The definitive translation of Plato’s Republic , the most influential text in the history of Western philosophy Long regarded as the most accurate rendering of Plato’s Republic that has yet been published, this widely acclaimed translation by Allan Bloom was the first to take a strictly literal approach. In addition to the annotated text, there is also a rich and valuable essay — as well as indices — which will enable readers to better understand the heart of Plato’s intention. This edition includes an introduction by renowned critic Adam Kirsch, setting the work in its intellectual context for a new generation of students and readers.
9. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Frederick Engels Review Summary
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
Socialism, Utopian and Scientific is a political science classic that needs no preface. It ranks with the Communist Manifesto as one of the indispensable books for any one desiring to understand the modern socialist movement. It has been translated into every language where capitalism prevails, and its circulation is more rapid than ever before. The book explains the differences between utopian socialism and scientific socialism, which Marxism considers itself to embody. The book explains that whereas utopian socialism is idealist, reflects the personal opinions of the authors and claims that society can be adapted based on these opinions, scientific socialism derives itself from reality. It focuses on the materialist conception of history, which is based on an analysis over history, and concludes that communism naturally follows capitalism. Engels begins the book by chronicaling the thought of utopian socialists, starting with Saint-Simon. He then proceeds to Fourier and Robert Owen. In Chapter Two, he summarizes dialectics, and then chronicles the thought from the ancient Greeks to Hegel. Chapter Three summarizes dialectics in relation to economic and social struggles, essentially echoing the words of Marx
10. Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Robert Nozick Review Summary
Sale
Anarchy, State, and Utopia
In this brilliant and widely acclaimed book, winner of the 1975 National Book Award, Robert Nozick challenges the most commonly held political and social positions of our age — liberal, socialist, and conservative.