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THE SILENCING
How the Left is Killing Free Speech
by Kirsten Powers

Fox News contributor, Kirsten Powers, who considers herself a liberal is concerned about the rise of the “illiberal left” — people who silence opposing viewpoints by delegitimizing others and making them examples for the rest of the society. Powers calls this “repressive tolerance” that sees the curbing of freedom of expression as a necessary strategy in pursuit of ideological goals.

This is a fascinating book that documents the illiberal left’s “campaign of coercion and intimidation.” Powers makes her case by grouping these offenses under different headings: “delegitimizing dissent,” “intimidation,” intolerance on university campuses, and “illiberal feminist thought police.” The chapter on Fox News seemed superfluous to me, as if Powers wanted to defend her employer. But overall, I hope conservatives and liberals alike read this book, and that more true liberals like Powers will speak out against the illiberal left.

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A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR
by Mark Helprin

This was the novel I took with me on vacation this year, after seeing Andy Crouch speak of it highly. It is a beautifully written book that takes you on a journey from the villas of Rome to the trench warfare of World War I. Helprin crafts the story in such a way as to offer us a view into the various aspects of that awful war: from the fate of deserters, to the trials of prison camp, and the bureaucracy of government officials.

The novel assumes the later idea that WWI was an unnecessary war and that soldiers did their duty without really believing in their cause. This is surely inaccurate, as recent research by Philip Jenkins has pointed out. But the novel itself is breathtaking in its scope, vivid in its imagery, and satisfying as an account of one man’s obsession with beauty in a harsh and ugly war.

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THE BOYS IN THE BOAT
9 Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Daniel James Brown

Another vacation read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book about the difficult childhood of Joe Rantz and his grit and determination to make it to the 1936 Olympics with eight other men on a rowing team. Brown adds drama to the account by switching back and forth between the Americans’ journey to Berlin and Germany’s strategy for using the Olympics as cover for their increasingly violent measures of silencing dissent.

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