Description

Dinesh D'Souza rose to national prominence as one of the founders of the Dartmouth Review, a leading voice in the rebirth of conservative politics on college campuses in the 1980s. He fired the first popular shot against political correctness with his best-selling exposé Illiberal Education. Now, after serving as a Reagan White House staffer, the managing editor of Policy Review, and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution, he addresses the next generation in Letters to a Young Conservative. Drawing on his own colorful experiences, both within the conservative world and while skirmishing with the left, D'Souza aims to enlighten and inspire young conservatives and give them weapons for the intellectual battles that they face in high school, college, and everyday life.

Letters to a Young Conservative also illuminates the enduring themes that for D'Souza anchor the conservative position: not "family values" or patriotism, but a philosophy based on natural rights and a belief in universal moral truths. With a light touch, D'Souza shows that conservatism needn't be stodgy or defensive, even though it is based on preserving the status quo. To the contrary, when a conservative has to expose basic liberal assumptions to scrutiny, he or she must become a kind of imaginative, fun-loving, forward-looking guerrilla—philosophically conservative but temperamentally radical. Among the topics Dinesh D'Souza covers in Letters to a Young Conservative:

Fighting Political Correctness
Authentic vs. Bogus Multiculturalism
Why Government Is the Problem
When the Rich Get Richer
How Affirmative Action Hurts Blacks
The Feminist Mistake
All the News That Fits
How to Harpoon a Liberal
The Self-Esteem Hoax
A Republican Realignment?
Why Conservatives Should Be Cheerful

Extended Copyright Information

Copyright 2002 by Dinesh D'Souza. All rights reserved.

Previously published by Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Opening Lines (Experimental)

Thanks for your letter. I'm glad you enjoyed my talk at your university. Can you believe the number of protesters who showed up? There were people from the International Socialist group, the Spartacus League, the Coalition to Save Humanity, even some jobless guys from the local community. Wow, did ...

Copyright

Copyright 2002 by Dinesh D'Souza.

All Rights Reserved.