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The Art of Political War and Other Radical Pursuits Hardcover – July 14, 2000


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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Spence Publishing Company; 1 Ed edition (July 14, 2000)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1890626287
  • ISBN-13: 978-1890626280
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #852,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The first half of this manifesto is a blunt, savvy, Machiavellian manual on the art of political campaigning that Republicans and Democrats alike may ignore at their own risk. Horowitz (Radical Son, etc.), former 1960s leftist turned prominent conservative, urges Republicans to go on the offensive, to take back issues that Clinton Democrats have co-opted, to reach out to working people and minorities, and to master images, symbols and sound bites as the Democrats have done. The book's incendiary second half, gathering articles of which many originally appeared in the Internet magazine Salon, reveals Horowitz as an independent, rigorous, outspoken political analyst who nevertheless can sound as dogmatic as a conservative as as he did when he was as a leftist. Horowitz calls Noam Chomsky an "America-loathing crank," advocates an end to "racial preferences" (affirmative action), argues that left-wing activists make up the core of the Democratic party, and castigates teachers' unions as the chief opponents to school reform. Ridiculing the NAACP's class-action lawsuits against gun manufacturers and educational testing firms, he contends that leaders like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have betrayed the civil rights movement by promoting a blacks-as-victims mentality and by blaming whites for problems endemic to the black communityAan attitude that he says has been exacerbated by a patronizing liberal establishment. Taking aim at motley supporters of censorshipAIrving Kristol, Andrea Dworkin, Tipper Gore, Catharine MacKinnonAlibertarian Horowitz opposes it in virtually all forms, including the v-chip parents can use to block offending television shows. In one scathing essay he accuses Edward Said, Betty Friedan and Nobel laureate and Guatemalan activist Rigoberta Menchu of falsifying details of their lives to serve their political agendas. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Written by a self-described former Sixties radical whose previous books (Radical Son, Hating Whitey, and The Politics of Bad Faith) explain his transformation to a libertarian conservative, this anthology of essays is an odd mixture of polemic against the Democratic Party, earnest but simple-minded advice to his new-found Republican Party, and heated airing of his strong, often controversial opinions on flashpoint social and political issues. Horowitz advises his fellow Republicans, whom he describes as "managers who want to fix government," to confront their Democratic adversaries, pejoratively called "missionaries who want to fix the world." He sharply criticizes what he believes is the media's bias against Republicans, federal and state education bureaucrats who siphon off federal funds intended for local use, and supposed Democratic Party softness on crime and national defense. Horowitz gets a lot off his politically incorrect chest, but his intended audienceDmainly Republicans and independentsDmight be put off by his libertarian position on censorship or his pugnacious prose. For medium and large public libraries.DJack Forman, San Diego Mesa Coll. Lib.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Horowitz does a masterful job of figuring out what lies behind the Democratic Party's traditional electoral appeal.
Hunter Baker
As usual, Mr. Horowitz's candor about the way in which politics work in America is superb, and his ability to express himself on paper has never been better.
brandon k dreiman
I highly recommend this book to anyone who honestly seeks to understand what is going on politically, and why things have been going as they have.
Robert H. Delgado

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

82 of 91 people found the following review helpful By Edward Buckham on September 25, 2000
Format: Hardcover
Horowitz has captured in this book what many thoughtful Republicans and observers around the country have attempted to convey for years: Republicans do not communicate their message in a manner that endears them to large blocs of the voting populace, and they do not make their opponents the enemy of those same voting blocs - a practice leftists have perfected over the years. That practice is called The Art of Political War.
Horowitz is a concise and relentless thinker, creating hard realities in this book that even the most self-acquitting Republican politico would be hard-pressed to ignore. He makes succinct that Republicans have failed to position themselves on the side of women, minorities and the poor, and as a result have been easily painted as intolerant, mean-spirited and hateful. Electoral results from 1996 and 1998 bear him out on this, and it is clear from this year's Bush effort that some in the GOP are taking heed of his counsel - with the Bush emphasis on the state of education a primary example. Horowitz argues forcefully and thoughtfully that the failure of the US education system can be laid squarely at the feet of the Democratic Party, who have controlled the school boards and city councils of every major city for the last 60 years. He contends that because Democrats are so beholden to the teachers' unions, they will rip away the bottom rungs from poor and minority children in exchange for hordes of campaign cash from the fastest-growing and most undeserving union in the country: the white-collar government worker. He could not be more correct, and the teachers' unions could not be more shameful.
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49 of 58 people found the following review helpful By Robert H. Delgado on September 21, 2000
Format: Hardcover
Horowitz as a former Communist and radical liberal knows how they think, feel and act. He knows all their dirty tricks and how they pull them off. These insights are further developed in his books "The Politics of Bad Faith - The Radical Assault on America's Future" and also in "Hating Whitey and other Progressive Causes".
He clearly reveals the underlying principles of Liberals, which apparently many of them do not even recognize. They have a missionary zeal to remake humanity in their image, and remake the country according to their viision - which is drastically different from the founding principles of the United States. The use of smear campaigns and character assisination apparently is acceptable because Conservatives, in their minds, are truly "bad people", and it is "right" to do anything that advances their cause.
Like any other utopian scheme, their "Liberalism" is bound to end in disaster, as has Communism and all other forms of totalitarianism and is well on the way in the United States now.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who honestly seeks to understand what is going on politically, and why things have been going as they have.
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23 of 27 people found the following review helpful By bart-q on February 11, 2002
Format: Hardcover
Anyone interested in conservative politics has probably heard of David Horowitz, inexhaustible political author, columnist extraordinaire, ... among other things. A couple of his more notorious books are "Hating Whitey" and "Radical Son".
Horowitz writes in a consistently aggressive style and he always stays true to his Conservative Libertarian ideals. One particularly interesting book of his is "The Art of Political War And Other Radical Pursuits". This title was released in the year 2000, prior to the infamous Presidential election fiasco.
This book is split into two main sections, as its title is divided. And also, as the title suggests, the first part of the book seems to be patterned after the classic, "Sun Tzu, The Art of War".
In the first section of the book, Horowitz clearly defines the players, the rules, and the tactics of this "political war". The liberals are predictably playing outside of the traditional rules, while the conservatives stand aside and complain about the fouls. There are no shortages of specific examples to illustrate these truths, and Horowitz is not afraid to draw conclusions.
He calls for fighting fire with fire. I'm just not so sure that the politics of personal destruction works all that well. I'd rather see the conservatives stick to their principles and avoid playing the game altogether. Either way, the first section of the book stands tall as a beacon of conservative understanding in modern politics.
The second half of the book is even more interesting as Horowitz covers a variety of controversial topics. One of his most popular topics is "Hating Whitey", his book and the title of a thought-provoking chapter in this book. He clearly holds true to his overall outspoken position against racism of any form.
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13 of 17 people found the following review helpful By Charles V. Lanza on August 7, 2001
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
The latest addition to his awe-inspiring list of insightful political books, The Art of Political War, is pure Horowitz and is true to his anti left bias. Like The Art of War by Sun Tzu and Machiavelli's, The Prince, The Art of Political War is an intense primer on dealing with one's enemy. Unlike, Tzu's book of strategies, which is not specific to a particular cause, or Machiavelli's strategies for rulers, Horowitz begins this essay with strategies addressed specifically to Republicans. He identifies six "principles of war", beginning with "Politics is war conducted by other means" which he suggests, "the left understands, but conservatives do not". After defining the six principles he very effectively demonstrates how they can be put into practice. He proposes, that Republicans can, if they, among other things "stop complaining that life is unfair", in respect to the media having a liberal bias, and "address the American People directly." He suggests, not at all tongue-in-cheek, the "Democrats cannot be trusted with the nation's security" and with a very sharp tongue, advocates "The bottom line is that Democrats are responsible for everything that has gone wrong with the public schools that can be caused or fixed by public policies."
These, and many others frequently inflammatory assertions throughout the book, are vintage Horowitz. They ring true because Horowitz has a long history of being an insider on the left and the right. Friend and foe alike, if they are honest, admit Horowitz has a profound understanding of many sides of the political landscape. They may, and more than many do, disagree on his motives. Some people argue he has seen the light while others say he, in fact, saw a better way to make a living.
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