Notable Books

Despite the title, Olsen and Scala barely touch the 2016 primary field, instead using exit polls from 2000, 2008, and 2012 to lay out convincingly why no fewer than four distinct categories comprise the GOP: moderates/liberals, somewhat conservatives, evangelical conservatives, and secular conservatives. Each group has different preferences, habits, and perhaps most importantly, regional clusters. Four Faces is not for the faint of heart. It relies heavily on bar charts and multivariate logistic regressions—but with a field as crazy as this one, readers looking to understand party trends will find past data helpful.

After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate

Mary Ziegler offers a scholarly but abstract look at the politics of abortion during the first decade after the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Ziegler points out that “between 1973 and 1984 Democrats sponsored most of the anti-abortion legislation considered in Congress,” and New York Republicans like Sen. Jacob Javits and Gov. Nelson Rockefeller were among “the abortion-rights movement’s strongest allies.” Then radical feminists turned abortion into a litmus test for Democrats, and the rest is not only hysteria but tragedy, as journalists emphasized the abstract “right to choose” rather than flesh-and-blood destruction.

The Conservative Heart: How to Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Prosperous America

Brooks says that work—measured in goals accomplished, not money earned—is not primarily a means to live but the core of life. “Earned success,” and the happiness and hope flowing from it, affirms the dignity of individuals and benefits families and communities. Conservatives, Brooks says, rail against entitlements but fail to effectively communicate the need to give poor people opportunity by restoring the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Brooks shows how to communicate the truth that elevating work nurtures man’s God-given desire to create something of value.

Islamic Fascism

Egyptian clerics are calling for the death of German-Egyptian political scientist Hamed Abdel-Samad, son of an Egyptian imam. Abdel-Samad argues many modern Islamic movements are fascist, having ties to and drawing inspiration from Hitler and Mussolini. Abdel-Samad criticizes the West’s attempts to distinguish between Islam and Islamic movements and offers suggestions about how Western governments could respond more effectively to their Muslim communities so as to prevent their radicalization. The first eight chapters are dense and a hard slog for those unfamiliar with Muslim history, so readers may want to begin with the current-events-laden chapters 9 and following.

Spotlight

Are sales of e-books rising or falling? The answer depends on who’s counting. The Association of American Publishers—which represents traditional publishing houses—reports declines in digital sales, while Amazon.com reports increases. That’s largely because the Amazon numbers include indie (self-published) books, now accounting for a quarter of all dollars spent on e-books, according to AuthorEarnings.com. Last year readers borrowed more than 169 million e-books from public libraries—an increase of 24 percent over 2014.

E-books can provide publishers with a rich source of data about their books. Andrew Rhomberg, founder of a company called Jellybooks, developed software that collects data from the e-readers of volunteer participants. One interesting discovery: “Men decide much faster than women do if they like a book or not. … Put another way, men give up on a book much sooner than women do.” —Susan Olasky