Being a member of an Ernest Becker newsgroup, it was a proud moment for all of us today when The Denial Of Death was listed as one of Bill Clinton's 21 favorite books (one wonders why it's 21, rather than 20, but the presence of one of Hillary's books makes this fact even more interesting).
I decided to do some checking up on some of the other books, and, at least with the non-fiction, discovered a trend that "history has a purpose", and that purpose is greater complexity, cooperation, and intelligence as embodied by human beings and their culture. This kind of thinking believes, to no surprise, that America is the pinnacle of this development.
Clinton also listed some excellent poets, including Seamus Heaney and William Butler Yeats, and actually represented an impressive array of writers. Others listed range from George Orwell and Ronald Neibuhr to Max Weber and Marcus Aurelius. Bill Clinton is definitely an odd one, in some ways, as no normal person would list Max Weber or any number of historical analysis tomes as their favorite books, or one entitled "Politics As A Vocation".
With this in mind, one wonders and may even grimace (or break out in hysterical laughter) at the prospect of what George W. Bush would list as his favorite 21 books (or 20, has his wife wrote a book?), but I'm willing to listen and keep an open mind about it.
Also, an Amazon reviewer of Carrol Quigley's book (in Clinton's list), redirects a curious peruser to this book, The Illuminati Manifesto, as a related work involving elites and the realization of history's grand plan, and it surely must have been an oversight that Bill left this one off the list (or he expected us to find it through Amazon, as he knows that's the first thing that blog geeks are going to do). I'm going into all of this actually in order to publish this fascinating piece of information gleaned from one of the Amazon reviewers of this book.
acocdrnig to an elgnsih unviesitry sutdy, the oredr of letetrs in a wrod dosen't mttaer. the olny thnig thta's iopmrantt is that the frsit and lsat ltteer of eervy word is in the crorect ptoision. the rset can be jmbueld and one is stlil albe to raed the txet wiohtut dclftfuiiy.
Amazing, isn't it?
