Reading list touches on imperialism in U.S. policies

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

– Jorge Luis Borges

We’re in the dog days already, and I haven’t mentioned my current summer book list yet. Readers of this column know a couple of my interests, and besides painting and writing, gardening and cooking are also strong avocations. But none of them holds a candle to reading.

I have little regard for religious depictions of heaven or hell and believe both are here to be created, by us, in the fullness of our actions in this world. I don’t know what comes after, and it doesn’t much concern me. I can tell you my personal hell, though: a life without books.

So here goes, in no particular order, starting with my heavier fare: “The Future of Freedom,” by Fareed Zakaria (W.W. Norton, 2003); “Conservatives Without Conscience,” John W. Dean (Viking, 2006); “American Theocracy,” Kevin Phillips (Viking, 2006); “Dark Ages America,” Morris Berman (W.W. Norton, 2006); and “Armed Madhouse,” Greg Palast (Dutton, 2006).

There is an overall meta-theme to this little stack, to which I’ll attend in a bit.

My lighter list goes like this: “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” Michael Pollan (Penguin Press, 2006); “In The Devil’s Garden,” Stewart Lee Allen (Ballantine Books, 2002); and “Pot on the Fire,” John Thorne (North Point Press, 2000). Plus pure escapist fare from Stephen King, Tess Gerritsen and Peter Straub.

I don’t read like this because I have to, and I certainly don’t do it to put on airs (thrillers and horror, after all).

Remember the story of the scorpion that hitches a ride on a frog’s back to cross the river? Halfway across, it stings the frog, who asks, “Why did you do that? Now we’re both going to die!”

And the scorpion says, “I know, but it’s just my nature.” Well, reading’s mine.

I don’t have room for more than the briefest overview of each book, but I do want to mention the overall theme of the first five, as promised. Should you have the least lingering doubt that America is an imperialistic nation, I’d suggest this small selection, which collectively pretty well nails down both our foreign and domestic agendas.

Here’s an egregious gloss-over: Zakaria, the history of liberal and illiberal democracy, and the future prospects for liberty; Phillips, oil dependence and our fragile state due to national debt, as well as fundamentalism at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.; Palast, the well-documented election fraud of 2004, the plans to steal ‘08, and a truly astounding (for its brevity) capsule look at globalization – who profits, who suffers.

I’ve only just cracked Dean’s new one, but apparently he’ll provide a look at the psychology of the ruling sociocons and the reasons that a certain type of personality follows authoritarian rulers.

Berman’s subtitle, “The Final Phase of Empire,” pretty much says it all. I’ve been reading his work for more than 25 years and consider him a national treasure. “Dark Ages America” will just scare the pants off of anyone who hasn’t been paying attention, and his analysis of the arc of American Empire alone is worth the price of admission, although there is much more.

The three food-related books study, in various ways, the ethics of eating: Pollan, our “industrial eating” versus more sustainable practices; Allen, the weird history of the role of religion in what we eat; and Thorne, eating (and cooking) with full attention, as a sacrament of sorts.

I believe that what and how we eat constitutes not only an ethic (or, at least, ethos), but is also a kind of political act and is as revelatory of who we are as anything else that I can think of.

So there’s my current reading, some of which leads me to a conclusion that I’m going to state in a few sweeping generalizations, without looking for evidence:

The more religious you are, in a fundamentalist fashion, the less you know from your own inquiry. (And the less likely you are to take me up on my recommended reading.) You’re also more likely to rely on an authoritarian ruler (both on earth and in heaven) for “truth.”

And, regardless of religion, the more authoritarian you are, the less liberal you’re likely to be, both politically and socially.

All that, taken together, makes for “interesting times,” as the Chinese curse goes. It could also well spell the end of the American experiment in freedom, although I fervently hope not. Wait, I guess I do have evidence – it’s in the books I just listed.