The Right Side of History -- Ben Shapiro -- Recommend with salt

The full title is "The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great" It's hard for me to have a really objective opinion about this, I listen to Ben's podcast almost on the daily and I genuinely like the guy. 

 The big takeaway from the book is that western culture (American Heritage) is built both on Athens and Jerusalem. On Athenian Reason and Judeo Christian morality. Anytime culture deviates from those roots, disaster ensues. The argument itself is appealing to me, but I didn't feel like it needed an entire book to be explained; in some ways, I think time might be better spent reading the authors he references (Plato, Russo, Locke, Thomas Aquinas, Maimonides, Jefferson, etc.). However, if you haven't read much from those enlightenment authors, then this could be a good intro!

 My main problem with the book is that the central argument suffers from tangent and reference fatigue. Shapiro brings in points of interesting Jewish doctrine that merely detract from the argument. He references 100 authors with such brevity that it's impossible for the reader to draw any thoughtful conclusions about the original author's arguments on his own. 

 Verdict: the book presents a worthwhile and beautiful framework for thinking about western heritage, but it to brief to be considered in any way comprehensive and too long to be considered a single facet. Recommend with a grain of salt

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