Recommended Reading

This list of books is only a sampling of the best books available to help you expand your knowledge of conservative ideas. The titles listed represent a wide range of topics and difficulty levels, but all are worth reading.

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High School Recommended Reading

• 1984 by George Orwell
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Constitution of the United States
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• Great American Conservative Women: A Collection of Speeches compiled by the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute
• Letters to a Young Conservative by Dinesh D’Souza
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
• Ronald Reagan by Libby Highes
• Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy by Lawrence W. Reed
• The Bible
• The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater
• The Declaration of Independence
• The Federalist Papers by Hamilton, Madison, Jay
• The Law by Frederic Bastiat
• The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck
• The Myth of the Robber Barons by Burton W. Folsom, Jr.
• The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek
• Whatever Happened to Justice by Richard J. Maybury

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General Recommended Reading

Biographies

• A Personal Odyssey  by Thomas Sowell
• Creating Equal: My Fight Against Racial Preferences by Ward Connerly
• Miles Gone By by William F. Buckley
• Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea by Irving Kristol
• Nofziger by Lyn Nofziger
• Radical Son by David Horowitz
• The Last Lion by William Manchester
• The Prince of Darkness by Robert Novak
• Two Lucky People by Milton and Rose Friedman

Communism

• Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism by Dr. Paul Kengor
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
• Reagan’s War: The Epic Story of His Forty Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism by Peter Schweizer
• Suicide of the West by James Burnham
• The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
• The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek
• Witness by Whittaker Chambers

Conservatism

• Conservative Victory by Sean Hannity
• Funding Fathers: The Unsung Heroes of the Conservative Movement by Nicole Hoplin and Ron Robinson
• Government Bullies by Rand Paul
• Great American Conservative Women: A Collection of Speeches by the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute
• In Defense of Freedom by Frank S. Meyer
• Landmark Speeches of the American Conservative Movement by Wynton Hall
• Letters to a Young Conservative by Dinesh D’Souza
• Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto by Mark Levin
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• Natural Right and History by Leo Strauss
• Pinheads and Patriots by Bill O’Reilly
• Rationalism in Politics and other essays by Michael Oakeshott
• Right from the Beginning by Patrick J. Buchanan
• Right Words: Great Speeches that Shaped History by Wynton Hall
• See, I Told You So by Rush Limbaugh
• The American Conservative Movement: The Philosophical Founders by Senator John P. East
• The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater
• The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America by George Nash
• The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot by Russell Kirk
• The Portable Conservative Reader by Russell Kirk
• The Tempting of America by Robert H. Bork
• The Way Things Ought To Be by Rush Limbaugh
• The City on a Hill by Michael Reagan
• Upstream: The Ascendance of American Conservatism by Al Regnery
• Why We Whisper: Restoring our Right to Say It’s Wrong by Senator Jim DeMint

Culture

• America’s Real War by Rabbi Daniel Lapin
• Chinese Girl in the Ghetto by Ying Ma
• Christianity and Culture by T.S. Eliot
• Common Sense by Glenn Beck
• Death of the West by Patrick Buchanan
• Hollywood vs America by Michael Medved
• Ideas Have Consequences by Richard M. Weaver
• It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good by Rick Santorum
• Pimps, Whores and Welfare Brats by Star Parker
• The Virtue of Prosperity: Finding Values in An Age of Techno-Affluence by Dinesh D’Souza
• What’s So Great About America by Dinesh D’Souza

Economics

• A History of Money and Banking in the United States by Murray Rothbard
• America’s Great Depression by Murray Rothbard
• Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell
• Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
• Crapitalism by Jason Mattera
• Economics In One Lesson  by Henry Hazlitt
• How Capitalism Saved America by Thomas DiLorenzo
• Human Action  by Ludwig von Mises
• In Defense of Global Capitalism  by Johan Norberg
• Liberty vs. the Tyranny of Socialism: Controversial Essays by Dr. Walter Williams
• Losing Ground by Charles Murray
• Man, Economy, and State by Murray Rothbard
• The End of Prosperity by Steve Moore
• The Power of Economic Thinking  by Mark Skousen
• The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek
• The Wealth of Nations  by Adam Smith
• Two Lucky People by Milton and Rose Friedman

Education

• God and Man at Yale by William F. Buckley
• Illiberal Education: Political Correctness and the College Experience by Dinesh D’Souza
• Intellectuals by Paul Johnson
• Professors by David Horowitz
• The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom
• The Shadow University by Alan Kors and Harvey Silvergate
• The Diversity Myth by David Sacks and Peter Thiel
• The Academy in Crisis edited by John Somme

Environment/Global Warming

• Climate Confusion by Roy Spencer
• The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and the Environment by Chris Horner (We recommend any books from the Politically Incorrect Guide series)
• The Really Inconvenient Truths by Iain Murray
• The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World by Bjorn Lomborg
• Unstoppable Global Warming by Fred Singer and Dennis Avery

Feminism

• Feminist Fantasies by Phyllis Schlafly
• Great American Conservative Women: A Collection of Speeches by the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute
• Male and Female by Margaret Mead
• Men and Marriage by George Gilder
• The War Against Boys by Christina Hoff Sommers
• Who Stole Feminism by Christina Hoff Sommers

Gun Rights

• God, Guns, and Rock ‘N’ Roll by Ted Nugent
• Guns Save Lives by Robert Waters
• More Guns, Less Crime  by John R. Lott Jr.
• That Every Man Be Armed by Stephen Halbrook
• The Best Defense by Robert Waters
• The Bias Against Guns  by John R. Lott Jr.

History (U.S)

• 48 Liberal Lies (That You Probably Learned in School) by Dr. Larry Schweikart
• A History of the American People by Paul Johnson
• A Patriot’s History of the United States by Dr. Larry Schweikart
• Constitution of the United States
• Congress and the American Tradition by James Burnham
• Crisis and Leviathan by Robert Higgs
• Crisis of the House Divided by Harry V. Jaffa
• Declaration of Independence
• Democracy in America by Alexis De Tocqueville
• New Deal or Raw Deal by Dr. Burt Folsom, Jr.
• Politically Incorrect Guide to American History by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
• The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen
• The Roosevelt Myth  by John T. Flynn
• The Myth of the Robber Barons by Burton W. Folsom, Jr.
• The Federalist Papers by Hamilton, Madison, Jay

History (World)

• Greatness: Reagan, Churchill and the Making of Extraordinary Leaders by Steven Hayward
• Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism by Joshua Muravchik
• Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg
• Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke
• The Last Lion by William Manchester
• The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
• The Triumph of Liberty by Jim Powell
• The President, The Pope, and The Prime Minister by John O’Sullivan
• The World We Have Lost by Peter Laslett

Immigration

• Invasion  by Michelle Malkin
• Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America’s Borders  by Jim Gilchrist and Jerome R. Corsi
• In Mortal Danger  by Rep. Tom Tancredo*
• Whatever it Takes: Illegal Immigration, Border Security and the War on Terror  by J.D. Hayworth

Liberalism

• Do As I Say, Not As I Do by Peter Schweizer
• Getting it Right by William F. Buckley, Jr.
• Godless by Ann Coulter**
• Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America by Ann Coulter
• Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation by Jason Mattera
• Hating Whitey by David Horowitz
• Political Pilgrims by Paul Hollander
• Slouching Towards Gomorrah by Robert Bork
• The New Science of Politics by Eric Voegelin
• Treason  by Ann Coulter
• Up from Liberalism by William F. Buckley, Jr.
• Why the Left Hates America by Daniel J. Flynn

Media

• Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right  by Ann Coulter
• Bias by Bernard Goldberg
• A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (and Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media by Bernard Goldberg
• South Park Conservatives  by Brian Anderson

Militant Islam

• Hatred’s Kingdom by Dore Gold
• Militant Islam Reaches America by Daniel Pipes
• The Cube and the Cathedral by George Weigel
• Islam Unveiled by Robert Spencer
• The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam  by Robert Spencer
• Al Qaeda’s Armies  by Jonathan Schanzer

National Security and Military

• Breakdown by Bill Gertz
• Making the Corps by Thomas Ricks
• Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose
• Cloak and Gown by Robin Winks
• On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace by Donald Kagan
• AWOL by Frank Schaeffer and Kathy Roth-Douquet
• Dereliction of Duty by H.R. McMaster
• American Military History: Volumes 1 & 2 by Richard Stewart
• America’s Victories: Why the U.S. Wins Wars and Will Win the War on Terror by Larry Schweikart

Novels

• 1984 by George Orwell
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
• Black List by Brad Thor
• Blowback by Brad Thor
• Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• Foreign Influence by Brad Thor
• Full Black by Brad Thor
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
• Path of the Assassin by Brad Thor
• Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard
• State of the Union by Brad Thor
• Takedown by Brad Thor
• The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• The Lion’s Game by Nelson DeMille
• The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
• The Fountainhead  by Ayn Rand
• The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck
• The Lions of Lucerne by Brad Thor
• The First Commandment by Brad Thor
• The Last Patriot by Brad Thor
• The Apostle by Brad Thor
• The Athena Project by Brad Thor

Race

• Creating Equal: My Fight Against Racial Preferences  by Ward Connerly
• Ethnic America: A History by Thomas Sowell
• He Talk Like a White Boy by Joseph Phillips
• Race and Culture  by Thomas Sowell
• The Content of Our Character by Shelby Steele
• The End of Racism  by Dinesh D’Souza
• Uncivil Wars  by David Horowitz

Ronald Reagan

• A Different Drummer: My Thirty Years with Ronald Reagan  by Michael K. Deaver
• God and Ronald Reagan by Dr. Paul Kengor
• How Ronald Reagan Changed my Life  by Peter Robinson
• I Love You, Ronnie  by Nancy D. Reagan
• Ronald Reagan: How An Ordinary Man Became An Extraordinary Leader  by Dinesh D’Souza
• Ronald Reagan and His Ranch, The Western White House  by Peter Hannaford
• Reagan’s War: The Epic Story of His Forty Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism  by Peter Schweizer
• Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Saved America
• The Age of Reagan  by Steven F. Hayward
• The Greatest Communicator  by Dick Wirthlin and Wynton Hall
• With Reagan: The Inside Story  by Edwin Meese III
• What I Saw at the Revolution by Peggy Noonan
• When Character Was King  by Peggy Noonan

Young America’s Foundation Speakers

• Death of the West by Patrick Buchanan
• Creating Equal  by Ward Connerly
• Fighting Back by Deena Burnett
• Godless by Ann Coulter
• Hating Whitey by David Horowitz
• Hollywood vs America by Michael Medved
• Illiberal Education by Dinesh D’Souza
• Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity by John Stossel
• Never Again by Attorney General John Ashcroft
• Saddam’s Secrets by Iraqi General Georges Sada
• Showdown  by Larry Elder
• Slander by Ann Coulter
• Ten Things You Can’t Say in America  by Larry Elder
• The Myth of the Robber Barons  by Burton W. Folsom, Jr.
• Uncivil Wars by David Horowitz
• What’s So Great About America by Dinesh D’Souza
• White Ghetto by Star Parker

* Original Recommended Conservative Reading List provided by the Young America’s Foundation.