Myron Magnet Libri

The narrative explores Clarence Thomas's disillusionment with the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution since his 1991 appointment. He critiques the erosion of the framers' intent, highlighting the Court's historical complicity in diminishing the Civil War amendments aimed at ensuring full citizenship for black Americans. The book traces a trajectory from Woodrow Wilson's rejection of representative lawmaking to the Warren Court's transformation of the Supreme Court into a quasi-constitutional convention, reshaping laws based on contemporary societal trends rather than constitutional principles.

Myron Magnet's The Dream and the Nightmare argues that the radical transformation of American culture that took place in the 1960s brought today's urban underclass into existence. Changed beliefs and lifestyle experimentation among the white middle class produced often catastrophic changes in attitudes toward marriage and childbearing, the work ethic and dependency among those at the bottom of the social ladder, and closed down their pathways to better lives. Texas Governor George W. Bush's presidential campaign recently highlighted the continuing importance of The Dream and the Nightmare when Bush told the Wall Street Journal it was the most important book he'd ever read with the exception of the Bible. Bush's chief strategist Karl Rove cites the book as a road map to the governor's philosophy of "compassionate conservatism.

Why the American Revolution, of all the great revolutions, was the only enduring success.

"The noble savage is a monstrous fiction. Man in his natural state is hardly man at all, but rather a warlike animal ruled entirely by his own aggressive and antisocial instincts. By restraining man's animal nature, civilization - and the public authority which is its distinguishing characteristic - makes the achievement of our true humanity possible. Furthermore, all manners and morals rest decisively on the quality of relationships between sons and fathers. While a civilized social order may come at the cost of diminished personal happiness, it nonetheless brings the decencies of law, peace, and prosperity within our reach." "This is the doctrine not of Freud, nor of Hobbes, but of Charles Dickens. So argues Myron Magnet in Dickens and the Social Order. Taking four books - Nicholas Nickelby, Barnaby Rudge, American Notes, and Martin Chuzzlewit - as constituting a distinct and critical state in the development of Dickens's social philosophy, Magnet shows that a surprisingly traditional worldview lies at the heart of Dickens's artistic achievement. He also contends that Dickens's essential conservatism is inextricably intertwined with the liberal reformism for which the great novelist is so well known."--Jacket