Tuesday, April 18, 2006

The Party of Death

Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online offers this advance praise for Ramesh Ponnuru's The Party of Death, which I plan to read:

Ramesh's book isn't officially out yet, so we are enjoined from discussing it in detail. But as someone who read the manuscript and finds it to be a simply amazing piece of work, I can tell you that you will definitely hear a lot about it, partcularly around here. If you are remotely interested in "life" issues and want a clear, powerful, logical and calm presentention of the pro-life perspective on a host of issues, I cannot even think of another work which comes close. If you want to follow the debate(s) from the get-go, I suggest buying it now. Right now.

I expect to be hearing quite a bit about this book in the days to come.

Update: Ramesh writes to say that the concerns expressed in the comments to this post are all addressed in the book. Meanwhile, here are some of the endorsements. Note especially the high praise in the final blurb from William Buckley.

The power of this book is the force of its logic. Ramesh Ponnuru has given us the most significant statement on the need to protect human life in America since Ronald Reagan's Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation. Like Reagan, he is calling America to return to its best self. And there is reason to hope that the country is listening. -Peggy Noonan

With his keen, analytical, and powerful pen, Ramesh Ponnuru dissects the myths that have surrounded abortion. We can now begin to reverse course by taking Ponnuru's book the same way he takes every issue: seriously. -William J. Bennett

Ramesh Ponnuru has written a smart, compelling, and eloquent book about some of the most important issues of our time. No matter how much you think you know about American politics and culture, you will learn a great deal from The Party of Death. -Mark Levin

Ramesh Ponnuru was once, like Ronald Reagan, in favor of abortion. Then he watched its logic unfold, was slowly repulsed, and then went over into resistance. His book, The Party of Death, is an easily understandable account of the logic of death, from abortion to euthanasia and beyond. This book cries out for mass-market sales in the hundreds of thousands, as the tide turns. -Michael Novak

This carefully researched and rigorously argued work skillfully rebuts the seductive arguments of America's merchants of death. Beautifully crafted, it is both enjoyable and profitable reading. -Chuck Colson

The Party of Death is the most important book of the year, if not the decade. Ramesh Ponnuru, one of the nation's most penetrating and lucid young conservative thinkers, makes a thorough, reasoned case for respecting life. The good news is that the death cult of Planned Parenthood, Howard Dean, and the New York Times is on the way to ultimate defeat. -Michelle Malkin

Thorough, heart-breaking, infuriating—an indictment that is also a cry for action by the people who still believe that life is the ultimate value. -Ben Stein

Ramesh Ponnuru's book will be accepted almost immediately as the seminal statement on human life. The book is stunning as scholarship, ingenious in its construction, passionate—but never overbearing—in its convictions. It will be read for decades, and revered as the most complete and resourceful essay on great questions that divide America. -William F. Buckley, Jr.