Timothy Ferris's "The Science of Liberty"

This is an excellent review of politics and science. It is a real education. The express purpose is to elaborate the interconnections between liberalism and science, but it achieves far more. It surveys the history and explains the concepts, and motivates a deeper appreciation of both science and the roots of classical liberalism.

Ferris is not an ideologue. He is willing to admit that in his political universe -- which has three poles, liberalism, progressivism, and conservatism -- each has its attractions and a role to play. He even argues that the "throw the rascal out" approach to politics is necessary from time to time because established parties lose contact with their constituents. But he is firmly in the liberal camp and sees shortcoming in progressivism (socialism, social democrats) and in conservatism. He is willing to admit that there can be blending such as neo-conservatives who take a bit from liberalism and conservatism and neo-liberalism which takes a bit from liberalism and progressivism. Chapter Two provides a wonderful political education. This chapter alone is reason enough to read this book.

Chapter Three is a wonderful review of early science and how its scientists were connected with the Whig political movement to create a more liberal society.

Chapter Four looks at philosophy and the Enlightenment. This chapter has a wonderful comment on Thomas Paine:

William Blake described Paine as a "worker of miracles," comparing him favorably to Jesus: "Is it a greater miracle to feed five thousand men with five loaves than to overthrow all the armies of Europe with a small pamphlet?"

Paine's first book, Common Sense, altered the political landscape almost overnight. Written in an accessible, unadorned style and bristling with insightful arguments for American independence, it was published on January 10, 1776, and sold over a hundred thousand copies before the year was out -- this in a colonial America with a population of under three million. "Its effects were sudden and extensive upon the American mind," wrote Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. "It was read by public men, repeated in clubs, spouted in Schools, and in one instance, delivered from the pulpit instead of a sermon by a clergyman in Connecticut." "This book was the arsenal to which colonists went for their mental weapons," wrote the nineteenth-century historian Theodore Parker. "Every living man in America in 1776, who could read, read Common Sense.... If he were a Tory, he read it, at least a little, just to find out for himself how atrocious it was; and if he were a Whig, he read it all to find the reasons why he was one."

From Chapter Five there is a nice discussion of "fundamentalism" with reference to my favourite physcist, Richard Feynman:

The physicist Richard Feynman, lecturing at the University of Washington in 1963, observed that political "fundamentalists" -- those who imagine that everything would be fine if only everyone subscribed to a putatively perfect philosophy -- make the mistake of underestimating the experimental, unpredictable nature of democratic governance. He reported talking with a group of conservatives who thought that "the Constitution was right the way it was written in the first place, and all the modifications that have come in are just the mistakes... I tried to explain that... according to the Constitution there are supposed to be votes. It isn't supposed to be automatically determinable ahead of time on each one of the items what's right and what's wrong. Otherwise there wouldn't be the bother to invent the Senate to have the votes." Speaking in his customarily rough-hewn, extemporaneous way, Feynman added a penetrating insight:

The government of the United States was developed under the idea that nobody knew how to make a government, or how to govern. The result is to invent a system to govern when you don't know how. And the way to arrange it is to permit a system, like we have, wherein new ideas can be developed and tried out and throw away. The writers of the Constitution knew of the value of doubt. In the age that they lived, for instance, science had already developed far enough to show the possibilities and potentialities that are the result of having uncertainty, the value of having the openness of possibility. The fact that you are not sure means that it is possible that there is another way some day. That openness of possibility is an opportunity. Doubt and discussion are essential to progress. The United States government, in that respect, is new, it's modern, and it is scientific. It is all messed up, too. Senators sell their votes for a dam in their state and discussions get all excited and lobbying replaces the minority's chance to represent itself, and so forth. The government of the United States is not very good, but it, with the possible exception [of] the government of England, is the greatest government on the earth today, is the most satisfactory, the most modern, but not very good.

Here is a review of the book by Gary Rosen in the NY Times.