Marvin Olasky: (HT: Justin Taylor)
WORLD’s book of the year is The Battle: How the Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America’s Future (May 2010, Basic Books). This succinct work by
Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, is the right book at this moment in U.S. history.
Honoring a book on current political and economic questions is unusual for WORLD. Our books of the year in 2008 and 2009 were The Reason for God and The ESV Study Bible. We generally rate timeless higher than timely—but sometimes we have to pay attention to the immediate. Samuel Johnson said, “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” As the United States careens toward a crucial fall election, The Battle is concentrating minds.
WORLD’s 2010 Book of the Year makes a compelling case that the clash between free enterprise and socialism is a moral battle. Read the whole review here.
Update: 6/23/10 - Kathryn Jean Lopez conducts a major interview with Arthur C. Brooks here. Lopez interview with Brooks, part 2.