10 great reads: AEI’s summer reading list

Whether you’re interested in rogue regimes, American history, medical innovations, or what caused the 2008 financial crisis, AEI has you covered with the latest books from its scholars. Here are 10 great reads.

 1. “The Conservative Heart: How to Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Prosperous America,” by Arthur C. Brooks

In “The Conservative Heart,” Arthur Brooks, the president of AEI, offers a bold new vision for conservatism as a movement for social and economic justice. Brooks contends that after years of focusing on economic growth and traditional social values, it is time for a new kind of conservatism — one that helps the vulnerable without mortgaging our children’s future.

In Brooks’s vision, this conservative movement fights poverty, promotes equal opportunity, celebrates earned success, and values spiritual enlightenment. It is an inclusive movement with a positive agenda to help people lead happier, more hopeful, and more satisfied lives.

 2. “By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission,” by Charles Murray

American freedom is being gutted. Whether we are trying to run a business, practice a vocation, raise our families, cooperate with our neighbors, or follow our religious beliefs, we run afoul of the government — not because we are doing anything wrong but because the government has decided it knows better. When we object, that government can and does tell us, “Try to fight this, and we’ll ruin you.”

In this book, acclaimed social scientist and bestselling author Charles Murray shows us why we can no longer hope to roll back the power of the federal government through the normal political process.

 3. “Pharmaphobia: How the Conflict of Interest Myth Undermines American Medical Innovation,” by Thomas Stossel

“Pharmaphobia” describes how an ideological crusade, stretching over the last quarter century, has used distortion and flawed logic to make medical innovation even harder in a misguided pursuit of theoretical professional purity. Bureaucrats, reporters, politicians, and predatory lawyers have built careers attacking the medical products industry, belittling its critical contributions to medical innovation and accusing it of nonexistent malfeasance. With breathtaking detail, Dr. Thomas Stossel shows how this attack on doctors who work with industry limits medical innovation and inhibits the process of bringing new products into medical care.

 4. “Cage-Busting Teacher,” by Frederick M. Hess

Detailed, accessible, and engaging, “Cage-Busting Teacher” uncovers the many ways in which teachers can break out of familiar constraints to influence school and classroom practice, education policy, and school reform. Based on interviews with hundreds of teachers, teacher advocates, union leaders, and others, Hess identifies the challenges teachers face, seeks concrete and workable solutions, and offers recommendations to put those solutions in place. A uniquely practical and inspiring book, “The Cage-Busting Teacher” is for educators who want to shape the schools and systems in which they work.

 5. “Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes,” by Michael Rubin

The world has never been as dangerous as it is now. Rogue regimes — governments and groups that eschew diplomatic normality, sponsor terrorism, and proliferate nuclear weapons—threaten the United States around the globe. Because sanctions and military action are so costly, the American strategy of first resort is dialogue, on the theory that “it never hurts to talk to enemies.” Seldom is conventional wisdom so wrong.

Engagement with rogue regimes is not cost-free, as Michael Rubin demonstrates. Whether in Pyongyang, Tehran, or Islamabad, rogue leaders understand that the West rewards bluster with incentives and that the US State Department too often values process more than results.

 6. “Hidden in Plain Sight: What Really Caused the World’s Worst Financial Crisis—and Why It Could Happen Again,” by Peter J. Wallison

The 2008 financial crisis — like the Great Depression — was a world-historical event. The conventional narrative is that the financial crisis was caused by Wall Street greed and insufficient regulation of the financial system. That narrative produced the Dodd-Frank Act, the most comprehensive financial-system regulation since the New Deal. A competing narrative about what caused the financial crisis has received little attention.

This view, accepted by most conservatives, contends that the crisis was caused by government housing policies. This book extensively documents this view. After “Hidden in Plain Sight,” no one will be able to claim that the financial crisis was caused by insufficient regulation, or defend Dodd-Frank, without coming to terms with the data this book contains.

 7. “James Madison: A Life Reconsidered,” by Lynne Cheney

This biography of James Madison explores the astonishing story of a man of vaunted modesty who audaciously changed the world. Among the Founding Fathers, Madison was a true genius of the early Republic. He was the intellectual driving force behind the Constitution and crucial to its ratification. His visionary political philosophy and rationale for the union of states — eloquently presented in The Federalist Papers — helped shape the country Americans live in today. Without precedent to guide him, he demonstrated that a republic could defend its honor and independence, and remain a republic still.

 8. “New and Better Schools: The Supply Side of School Choice,” by Michael Q. McShane

In the past decade, the number of students enrolled in private-school choice programs has grown ten-fold. But granting students access to public financing for their private education has not led to the vibrant marketplace of school options that school choice supporters envisioned.

If school choice policy is to improve the American education landscape, careful thought must be put in to understand how this policy can expand existing and create new high-quality schools to serve more children. “New and Better Schools” attacks this problem from the perspective of both researchers and practitioners, documenting the hurdles entrepreneurial school leaders face and offering a way forward.

 9. “Strategy in Asia: The Past, Present, and Future of Regional Security,” by Dan Blumenthal and Thomas Mahnken

Over the coming decades, some of the greatest challenges to the United States are likely to emanate from the Asia-Pacific region. China and India are rising and militant Islam continues to take root in Pakistan, while nuclear proliferation threatens to continue in fits and starts. If America is to meet these challenges comprehensively, strategists will have to learn more about Asia, and Asian scholars, policymakers, and analysts will need to better understand the enduring and timeless principles of strategy.

The book uses the lenses of geography, culture, and economics to examine in depth the strategic context that Asia presents to the major nations of the region — including the United States as a Pacific nation — and the strategic scenarios that may well play out in the region in the near future.

 10. “Reinventing Financial Aid: Charting a New Course to College Affordability,” by Sara Goldrick-Rab and Andrew Kelly

In this provocative volume, Andrew P. Kelly and Sara Goldrick-Rab, two experts with very different points of view, address the growing concern that student loan programs are not a sustainable solution to the problem of mounting college costs. “Reinventing Financial Aid” provides a thorough critique of the existing financial aid system and identifies the challenges for reform. It presents a host of innovations designed to improve grant and loan programs and the processes by which students can access them.