Legal Commentary

Best Books on American Conservativism:

By Todd Zywicki

Some time back I posted the list by Mitch Daniels of his five best books on conservatism.  The same website (fivebooks.com) solicited the views of several others on the same topic.

Fivebooks has now gone back to all of those who participated and assembled their composite list, as they voted on each others? entries as well.  The final list is here.  The winner?  Hayek?s Road to Serfdom.  Witness, Democracy in America, The Federalist Papers, and Free to Choose round out the top 5.

Among authors, Hayek received the most votes for Road to Serfdom and The Constitution of Liberty combined.  Friedman, Chambers, Buckley, and Tocqueville round out the list.

At one time or another I?ve read the first 15 books on the list.  Reviewing the list, it is interesting that when I was in school I only read one of the 15 (On Liberty) and small parts of another (some of The Federalist Papers) as assigned reading for a class.  I also read Burke, but not ?The Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs.?  All of the others I eventually came across and read on my own.

There are plenty of other interesting lists over at the fivebooks.com site, so check it out.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on September 16, 2010 (boomark / email).