Five Worthy Books Read by Me in 2024

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Isolationism Reconfigured (1995) by Eric A. Nordlinger

Professor Nordlinger passed away before Isolationism Reconfigured was published, so he couldn’t promote it on CSPAN and other places. The book is also written in a turgid academic style. Those facts hampered the spread of isolationist ideas in the mid-1990s, unfortunately. In Isolationism Reconfigured, every point made by past non-interventionist Americans is examined by Nordlinger and found worthy. Had Nordlinger’s ideas been more broadly read and adopted in the 1990s, America could have kept out of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and post-Cold War Korea and saved the Americans a great many headaches.

Professor Nordlinger applies America’s Isolationistschool of thought to the Cold War, which had only recently ended when the book was published in 1995. After looking at the earlier isolationist policy proposals, Nordlinger came to believe that America could have won the Cold War without the globe-spanning effort. America’s geographic position is such that there were no chokepoints which the communists could have used to close off the sea lanes used by America’s merchant fleet. America’s geographic isolation was as important a factor in the 1970s as it was in the 1930s or even the 1830s. America was free to stand apart.

America was also able to buy raw materials from countries outside the contested Third World regions which were alleged to have a monopoly on the various “critical resources” identified by interventionist Cold Warriors. Additionally, changing technology meant that one “critical” raw input could quickly be replaced with another. The campaigns in Korea and Vietnam during the Cold War were unnecessary. The fights were costly and out-of-the way from regions vital to American interests. During those conflicts there was a standing risk that the Soviets could have made a play for Europe while the best American divisions were in Asia. Finally, the Soviet system was so dysfunctional that it was doomed from the get-go.

The claims in the book are bold indeed. Personally, I think that the communists had to be confronted, although not in the exact ways in which they were confronted, perhaps. While the communist system was dysfunctional, it still had the ability to capture the minds of idealists. Those idealists went on to create bloodbaths. Those close enough to the communist idealist to hear the screams of communism’s many victims would have done everything in their power to get assistance from America. Plus, it was always possible for communism to spread in the United States. Regardless, Isolationism Reconfigured was worth the read.

Yankees and God (1954) by Chard Powers Smith

It is no secret that the early Puritan settlers of New England had a major impact on the culture of the United States. Chard Powers Smith (1894 – 1977) wrote an outstanding account of the twists and turns of Puritan theology of New England from its earliest days to his own time.

The Puritans were Calvinists who believed in the doctrine of the elect, which meant that people were “saved” by the Grace of God alone and God had elected those to be saved at the beginning of time. Once the colonies in Massachusetts and Connecticut became established, Puritan thinkers started to question this and they divided into three (plus one) theological schools. Smith writes,

The three Puritan schools…with respect to the general matter of Predestination and Free Will had each its appropriate interpretation of the Grace or Imputation of the Atonement to individuals. By the school of [Reverend Thomas] Hooker it was imputed to those who were able, by a faint act of Free Will, to Prepare themselves to recognize the offer of Election when it came. By the Arminians it was imputed to all who morally deserved it. By the School of Total depravity it was imputed to whom it would be imputed, and individual will was helpless. Besides these views, in each of which Justice was stronger than Mercy, there appeared in the eighteenth century a fourth view, that of Universalism, in which Mercy was stronger than Justice. Christ died for everybody, wherefore everybody, with or without a future period of purgation, will be Justified, Elected, Regenerated and Saved willy-nilly. If anyone interposes a stubborn, individualistic, reprobate Free, Will, it must be overcome for its own good. [pp. 69 – 70]

Within these four schools of thought lie the theological underpinnings of industrialization, the Social Gospel, and Transcendentalism. Almost every idea in American Christianity has its origin into in the theological controversy described above.

The idea of universal salvation is shown in an outstanding film called Come Sunday (2018) which tells the story of the late Bishop Carlton Pearson. Pearson was a preacher in a racially integrated, but conservative church in Oklahoma which was aligned with the late Oral Robert’s ministry. The Rwandan Genocide caused Pearson to have a crisis of faith, and he came to believe in the Universalist point of view. Pearson’s theological journey undoubtedly had a great deal to do with race, the whites in his congregation probably knew, deep down, that Rwanda and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa’s problems have everything to do with DNA and little to do with Jesus. Pearson, who was himself black might have understood this but was not able to admit it.

In the same way that Bishop Pearson couldn’t turn a theological spotlight on his own kind, Smith is unable to describe the very real Yankee Problem in American culture. Yankees tend to get wrapped up in utopian schemes that end badly. This probably has a genetic component. The same people who were utopian Fifth Monarchists and Ranters in England in the seventeenth century were also attracted to Puritanism. Yankees have also fallen for “the end is near” religious fads and sexually reckless churches such as the Oneida Community.

The biggest Yankee failing is Negro Worship. This heresy grew out of the abolitionist struggle, which was carried out in churches across the North after 1790. By 1830, Negro Worship was a fully developed idea which led mattoids like John Brown to start the Civil War. The fact that Negro Worship is so entrenched in Yankee culture is probably a reason why “Ellis Island Americans” can quickly come to support white advocates while old-stock Americans take years to gain enlightenment.

Grover Cleveland: The Last Jeffersonian President (2021) by Ryan S. Walters

Grover Cleveland was a unique president in that he had two, non-consecutive terms as President. Additionally, he was a Democrat at a time when the Republicans absolutely dominated the Federal government in the wake of the Civil War. Cleveland’s election as a Democrat was part of the end of the bitter sectional rivalries that led to the War Between the States. However, Cleveland’s presidency was the end of the Democratic Party as the live-and-let live party. Cleveland didn’t get the government involved in uplift, disaster relief, or foreign entanglements. He did, ultimately, work to annex Hawaii, but his hands were tied by the actions of the previous administration and events on the ground.

Cleveland also stood for “sound money” which was backed by the gold standard. The book has the sense of Ron Paul’s ideology being transmitted back to this excellent president. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t describe Cleveland’s most important contribution. He signed into law bills passed by Southern Democrats which disenfranchised sub-Saharans. This lowered the political temperature and allowed whites to rationally take on complex problems like monetary policy and tariffs without any group feeling they’d be overwhelmed by Africanization.

The New Map (2020) Daniel Yergin

Energy policy is a big deal. The New Map details the changes in technology which allowed for the fracking boom and the gathering of natural gas from deep in the Earth. Yergin attempts to tie all political shenanigans and military operations back to oil or pipelines. While there is some truth to this, I’m convinced that most of America’s foreign involvement is due to groups of paperwork-Americans who pressure politicians domestically. The Iraq War was about Israel, the Ukraine War, was partially about Jewish antagonism towards Russia, etc. Regardless, this book is completely enlightening, and it is widely believed by mainstream Americans.

Gnostic Wars (1999) by Stefan Rossbach

There is fascinating literature one can read regarding Christ’s religious movement after the crucifixion. The early Christians broke into different denominations very quickly. Pauline Christianity is different from that of James the Just. The Johannine community is also unique. The Johannines were led by John the son of Zebedee and followed his theological teachings which are found in the Gospel of John, the three letters of John, and Revelation.

The Johannine community is important because its theology is the closest to the Nicene Creed, there is no overt rejection of the Old Testament, and the community was clearly sectarian – it divides Jews from Christians and also separates the Johannine community from other Christians, (e.g. …Diotrephes…receiveth us not.) (3 John 1:9)

It is not certain what the theology of Diotrephes was, or why he wouldn’t receive the messengers of John. It is certain however that there was an early movement loosely based on Christ’s teachings called Gnosticism. Accusations of “Gnosticism” was and is used as an insult between proponents of different schools of thought, so the title has lost much of its edge, but Gnosticism is a living religion which goes by different names, and it creates bad outcomes when applied to the real world.

Archeologists discovered Gnostic texts in a cave in Egypt in 1945, so Gnostic theology is known. Some of Gnosticism is the merging of Christ’s message with Greek philosophy. There is a text which has the character “Jesus” saying the same words as Socrates, and other mundane documents. The Gnostics also believe in Plato’s story of the cave, where the prisoners are trapped watching the illusion of truth in the form of shadows on the cave wall. So, on the surface, mainstream Christianity, Greek philosophy, and Gnosticism seem similar. This merging found in Gnosticism is also not unknown in proto-orthodox Christianity, John’s Gospel likewise merges Christ’s teachings with Greek theological themes. (In the beginning was the Word… With “the Word,” λόγος, having a connotation of Reason.)

However, there are enough differences that following Gnosticism to its logical endpoint leads to wildly different outcomes than following Christianity’s theology. Gnostic theology holds that the God of the Old Testament is different from God of the New Testament. This is also not entirely illogical, the message of Christ is wildly different from the ethnonationalist manifesto nature of the older scriptures. However, by completely ignoring racial, national, and ethnic distinctions found in the Old Testament, followers of Gnosticism, like the Yankees, can get wrapped up in utopian schemes which fail miserably.

Gnosticism also rejected the idea that Jesus Christ was a human. Instead, Gnostics claim he was a spirit appearing to be human. The idea of Jesus as a non-human spirit appealed to the Gnostics because they believed that they were, like Plato’s prisoners in a cave looking at shadows, sprits trapped in a corrupt material system created by the Old Testament God who was not the father of Jesus.

In other words, there is a spiritual truth which is entirely separate from the world which is based on corrupt physical matter. In Christian theology, God is separate from man because of sin. In Gnosticism, God is separate from corrupt matter because matter itself is evil. Gnosticism is at the bottom of the transsexual fad, which claims that humans have a male or female spirit which is independent of the physical body. To put it bluntly, this is not true, and it has allowed perverse men to exploit the political system to satisfy their sexual fetishes. It has also caused morose teenaged girls to damage themselves.

The Gnostic idea that people are spirits trapped in an evil material world led to the Heaven’s Gate Mass Suicide of 1997. This was when a group of people believed that their deaths would cause their souls to ascend into a UFO they claimed was flying in the tail of the Hale-Bopp Comet. The illogical combination is typical of Gnosticism, how and why, for example, would the spirit of the soul ascend into a UFO which is a technological craft made up of corrupt matter and why wouldn’t the UFO land on Earth and pick the group up?

Gnosticism also divides society into pure categories of good and evil. The logical endpoint of that idea is that those with the hidden Gnostic knowledge, are good and all others are evil. This is the theology underpinning the “Troon” shooting in Nashville in 2023.

Gnosticism is also the theological underpinning of Marxism. During the height of the Soviet Union – under Stalin between 1945 and 1953 – Gnosticism colored everything. The Soviets had a stark, good versus evil world view which was independent of reality. Soviets who understood the Gnosis of Marxist ideology were good, and all others evil. This Gnosis became a circular firing squad, those who believed in the Gnosis of Stalinism became the mortal enemies of the Gnosis of Trotskyism. Additionally, if Stalin said Königsberg was an ice-free port on the Baltic, then it was, although Königsberg is not ice free. The end point of Marxist and Bolshevik Gnosticism are the Gulag and the terror famines.

The book also examines, America’s religious heritage – especially some of the Puritan-like movements which had Gnostic tendencies. It also examines George Kennan’s large body of intellectual work from a theological standpoint. Kennan was uncomfortable with the purely military response to communism and argued for a political containment.

Bibliography

Eric A. Nordlinger, Isolationism Reconfigured, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995)

Stefan Rossbach, Gnostic Wars: The Cold War in the Context of a History of Western Spirituality, (Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburg University Press, 1999)

Chard Powers Smith, Yankees and God, (New York: Hermitage House, 1955)

Ryan S. Walters, Crover Cleveland: The Last Jeffersonian President, (McClellanville, SC: The Abbeville Institute Press, 2021)

Daniel Yergin, The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations, (New York: Penguin Books, 2020)