MM#451--Reading Goals, Real Growth

Ready to swap doomscrolling for thinking that actually changes your mind? David closes out the year with a 34-book reading journey and the five standout titles that forged a stronger, more coherent worldview—spanning Civil War history, economic systems, political ideology, and Christian public life.

Along the way, David shares a practical path: start with 12 excellent books, take notes, use audio plus print, and talk through ideas with people who challenge you. The aim isn’t a bigger reading tally; it’s better judgment, clearer history, and a sturdy framework for evaluating claims in a noisy world. If this resonates, hit follow, share the episode with a friend who loves big ideas, and leave a quick review telling us which book you’ll read first.

Key Points from the Episode:

• purposeful reading over tallying books
• debunking the Lost Cause and modern myths
• Longstreet’s turn and the cost of courage
• why communism appeals and what it delivers
• how American systems create durable prosperity
• Christian patriotism and public engagement
• connecting patterns across domains for clarity
• practical reading habits and monthly goals

Be sure to check out our show page at teammojocademy.com, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources

Other resources: 

MM#443--Christian Nationalism, NO, Christian Patriotism!

Want to leave a review? Click here, and if we earned a five-star review from you **high five and knuckle bumps**, we appreciate it greatly!

Transcript

Setting The Stage And Goal

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Theory to Action Podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.

Why Read With Purpose

Book One: Debunking The Lost Cause

Book Two: Longstreet And Moral Courage

Book Three: Understanding Communism’s Appeal

Book Four: How America Creates Wealth

Book Five: Christian Patriotism In Public Life

Connecting Dots Across Domains

Practical Reading Habits And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Hello, I am David, and welcome back to another mojo minute. And it's our final mojo minute for 2025. 90% of these podcasts are usually about you, the listener, your desires, your big ideas, and what through events, news, conversations, whatever's on your minds and in your hearts. That is what I usually gather for these podcasts, or especially the mojo minutes. So please allow me as your guide to share some of my own personal insights and a goal that I have accomplished this year that's kind of big, for me at least. Earlier this year I set a goal that many would consider ambitious to read 34 books in a single year. I've never tracked my reading habits, especially by the book number, until three years ago. Then in 2023, I read 30 books. Kind of good. Then in 2024, I challenged myself to read just one more book than that. And in fact, I read three more books that year. So my total was 33. If public school math serves me right, I believe it does. And I guess last year, which by tomorrow will have been two years ago. So coming into this year, 2025, my goal was to read 34 books. And I have now read 34 books. Okay, okay, turn that thing off. So the laugh track was a little like Ralphie in the movie Christmas Story when he's dreaming repeatedly about all the great things he could do with his 22 caliber Red Rider triple action BB gun with a compass stock and sundial, or whatever that whole saying is. If you've never watched the movie Christmas Story, What's Wrong With You? First. Came out in 1983. Have you been living under a rock? I think it's been on a 24-hour marathon for the last 20 years on cable. Especially every Christmas. Be sure to check out Christmas Story. Great movie. But getting back to my reading journey, it wasn't about checking boxes or collecting reading badges. Instead, my reading has always been purposeful. It was about deepening my understanding, understanding of history, economics, politics, and my faith, the pillars that shape how I see the world and my role in it. Many have called that a worldview. In 2026, we're going to talk, tackle worldviews. But looking back on this reading journey and how it has transformed how I think about America, its past, and its future direction. And here's the thing about reading at scale. When you're consuming serious, substantive books consistently, you start to notice some patterns. Ideas from one author reinforce themes in another. Connecting dots, if you will. After completing 34 books this year, I want to share at least five that I believe deserve your attention. And these aren't casual reads. They're books that made me reconsider assumptions that challenged my thinking and equipped me with better frameworks for understanding our current moment and situation. If you care about American history, political philosophy, economics, or faith in public life, these five books should be on your list. Book number one. Because understanding our actual history, not the sanitized version many of us have learned in school. Our first book is The Myth of the Lost Cause by Edward Bone Kemper. Talked about this earlier this year on the podcast, but for generations, the American South crafted a narrative about the Civil War called the Lost Cause. It went something like this slavery was benevolent and declining anyway, states rights, not slavery, drove secession. Robert E. Lee was a military genius who won nearly against impossible odds, and Ulysses S. Grant was a reckless butcher who won through brutal force and superior numbers. It's a coherent story, and in fact it's even emotionally satisfying to the South, if you need to explain away a brutal defeat. But here's the kicker. It's almost entirely false. Bone Kemper's book methodically and systematically dismantles every component of this myth. He's not writing philosophy here. He's writing a prosecutorial history, backing every single claim with evidence. And what makes this book essential isn't just that it corrects the Civil War record. It reveals how historical narratives get constructed and why they persist. It's that same template creating a mythology to explain failure and defeat that didn't disappear after 1865. It continues to reappear throughout history, whenever groups need to rationalize loss. And honestly, if you spot that pattern in the Civil War, you start seeing it everywhere in contemporary political discourse. So why should you read the myth of the loss cause? First, if you want to understand Civil War history accurately, this is non-negotiable. But more importantly, it teaches you how to spot the historical mythology when it appears in contemporary arguments. Bone Kemper gives you the intellectual tools to ask the harder questions about the narratives that you're being fed. Book number two. Second book is called Longstreet by Elizabeth Varon. It's a perfect study of moral complexity and what happens when ideology collides with personal conscience. James Longstreet was Robert E. Lee's most trusted general. Lee called him his old war horse. He fought fiercely for the Confederacy. But after the war, something remarkable happened. Longstreet moved to New Orleans, looked at the integrated, newly constructed government, and chose to support black voting rights. Even led an interracial militia to fight white supremacists who were attempting to overthrow the Republican state government at the time. His fellow Southerners turned on him viciously. They branded him a race traitor. And in a historical move that's both petty and telling, they began retroactively blaming him for the Confederate military failures, especially at Gettysburg. White Southerners literally rewrote history to punish a man they couldn't break or didn't understand during the war. Varon's biography doesn't shy away from Longstreet's earlier support of slavery and his Confederate service. Instead, it asks the harder question What drove a man to fundamentally change his political and moral positions after the war? What does it say about a society that violently rejects someone who was doing the right and moral thing? Folks, that is a courage in the strongest, most direct sense of the word and of the virtue. And here's why Longstreet Matters for you and me. It's a masterclass in historical biography that actually respects your intelligence. But it's also a meditation on political courage, moral conviction, and what reconstruction might have been if voices like Longstreet's had been strengthened instead of destroyed? He should have been the example to so many others. If we had more examples during those one hundred years, from eighteen sixty five to nineteen sixty five, what would have the Reconstructed South been like? Would Jim Grow have been lessened or even perhaps completely abolished? Who knows? But that is the point of recommending this reading. As a specific person we can all point to as someone who led by example well before his time, and after living his life with the deep and moral convictions that he grew up with, he doesn't change his ways until almost half of his life was over. Once Longstreet lost the war, he spent countless hours on how best to proceed. And the second half of his life was frankly incredible. In our current moment, we are debating how to move past this polarization in our country. Perhaps James Longstreet is a good example to look at. Flawed as he is, he's not a perfect man. But he offers us something genuinely instructive about what it costs to change your mind publicly. And more people need to know his story. Book number three. Now let's shift to something completely different. Our third book is The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism by Paul Kengore. If you want to understand why so many Americans are attracted to communism, despite its catastrophic historical record, this book is essential homework for you and for me. Kengore isn't writing from an ivory tower. He's a scholar who has spent decades researching communist history and its ideology, including extensive work in the Soviet archives. His central thesis is straightforward but profound. Most Americans, especially our younger generations, fundamentally misunderstand what communism actually proposes and what it has actually done when implemented. The book walks you through communism's core tenets, the abolition of private property, the rejection of the traditional family structure, the centralization of all economic control in the state, the inevitable global revolution. These aren't peripheral ideas. They're central to communism's ideology. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels weren't ambiguous about what they wanted. They wrote it down explicitly multiple times. Paul Kangor then documents what happened when these ideas were actually put into practice. Stalin, Mao, the gulags, the forced collectivization that caused famines killing millions, the dissolution of religious institutions and traditional marriage. The body count was over a hundred million, and still counting. But here's what makes this book different from other anti-communist screeds. Paul Kengore takes seriously the question of why communism appeals to people. He traces how a communist organization successfully infiltrated American progressive movements throughout the twentieth century, co-opting legitimate social causes to advance their revolutionary goals. He explains the intellectual seduction of the utopian ideology and why it captures the imagination of idealistic young people. So why should you read this? Because your children are being sold this ideology. Our children are being sold this ideology in universities, now in our high schools, and even some places in grade schools, certainly on social media, certainly in activist circles, often by people who have never read Marx, never studied communist history, and have no idea what they're actually advocating for. This book is your inoculation, your antidote against that seduction. It's also a reminder that ideas do have consequences, sometimes catastrophic ones. Read this book, listen to it on audible as you drive in your car, even get a hard copy of it. It has incredible books recommended throughout it to further read on the catastrophic nature of communism, and we should take heed. Book number four. Gordon, you guys have heard me gush from this microphone about this book because it asks the fundamental question: how did a nation with only six percent of the world's land and six percent of its population come to dominate the global economy? Gordon's answer is elegant. It's the American economic system. Unlike Rome or Britain and other empires that maintain dominance through military force and political coercion, America created wealth at a scale and at a velocity that has never been seen before. That wealth and the capacity to continually generate it over and over has become America's actual source of global influence. Gordon traces this story from our colonial times through the modern era. He documents the innovations, the entrepreneurs, the mistakes, the corruption, the general and genuine genius that built American economic power. And he doesn't write a triumphalist history. He's candid. That's refreshing. He's candid about the stumbles, about the frequent foolishness, the corruption that attended some American economic rise. But it all wasn't greed. What emerges from this narrative is something more powerful. It's the fact that systems and structure matter. The American legal system, property rights, capital markets, the entrepreneurial culture, the relative lack of government control over economic activity created conditions where wealth could be generated continuously. That wasn't accidental. It flowed from deliberate choices about how to organize economic society. And where have we heard this before? DeSoto's book, Mystery of Capital. Yep, you got it. So why should you read this book? Because understanding how prosperity is actually created is the antidote to the economic resentment and utopian thinking, which half of our country is addicted to. And they're only addicted to it because of bad schooling. When you understand the genuine difficulty of creating wealth, when you develop respect for the systems that have done so much so successfully, you also become skeptical of the ideologies that promise to reorganize economics based on a theory rather than what actually works. Gordon gives us the historical foundation to evaluate that economic policy intelligently. An amen for that. And here's something I noticed reading this book after Ken Gore's book on communism. Gordon's explanation of how the American economic systems generate wealth is precisely the opposite of why communist ideology's proposal to centralize all economic control is so fundamentally problematic. You see, you start to connect those dots, the ideas in the books. And book number five, our final and fifth book is Christian Patria by Taylor Marshall. This is the book that brings everything together, the history, our faith, politics, and the question of how Christians should engage in public life. It's a legitimate question. Marshall is a Catholic convert and theologian. His core argument is that Western civilization was built on Christian foundations, and Christians have both a right and responsibility to defend and restore explicitly Christian values in the public square. The book tackles twelve strategic areas, from abortion to family structure to education and religious freedom. And it proposes actionable strategies for Christian cultural renewal. And God knows we need that. Now it's worth noting that Marshall was careful careful about his terminology. He distinguishes between Christian nationalism, which can veer into problematic territory, and Christian patriotism, which he defines as love of the country, rooted in Christian virtue and duty. And we actually have addressed that in a previous mojo minute from this microphone. So be sure to check that out if you're interested. I'll put a link in the show notes. This notion of nationalism versus patriotism. But Marshall is drawing on medieval Catholic political philosophy and even the natural law tradition. He's not constructing something entirely novel. His argument is that Christians should cede, I'm sorry, that should not cede the public square. We have ceded it for some 100 years. And we've been ceding it to secular. Secular ideologies. And what we should do instead is bring our full intellectual and moral resources as Christians to bear on the political questions. Now, some of you listening will find this inspiring, and others will worry about ooh, there's implications there. That's fine. That tension, that very tension right there, that is exactly why you should read it. Marshall isn't trying to hide his intentions or soften his language. He's making a direct argument about Christianity's proper role in society and offering concrete steps for how to advance that vision. And boy, is it refreshing. So why does this matter? Because the question of how we Christians engage politically is no longer theoretical. It's urgent, it's immediate, and it's in our face. Radical Islam and communism are aligning around the world more coherently than perhaps in the last seventy-five years. They have aligned before, but they never really separated. They're gaining steam again, and they're gaining steam, frankly, with the help of our own young people in the United States who have been indoctrinated in our own schools, even grade and high schools. This is where the next battle is shaping up, and that battle is already here. Any questions that the battle is not here? Well just check out London, England, and its difficulty in addressing these questions, because England is teeter-tottering right now into social anarchy. But back to our final book, Christian Patriot. Whether you agree with Marshall or not, you need to understand the argument being made by someone who's thoughtfully articulated a Christian case for cultural renewal, and more especially about political engagement. Too many Christians sit on the sidelines. And here's the point. Understanding what others believe, really understanding it, not just dismissing it, is the foundation for any substantive conversation about America's future direction. Now, here's what I want to tell you about reading 34 books this year. It wasn't about productivity or chucking everything off the list. It was about creating the conditions for genuine intellectual growth. And here's what I noticed. When you're reading consistently across different domains, patterns of big ideas emerge that you would miss from a single book. Let's go back to the beginning, the lost cause mythology. The bone camper deconstructs. That shows up in how certain political narratives get constructed today. Longstreet's moral courage in the face of cultural rejection resonates differently when you understand the economics that created the conditions for reconstruction. Understanding communism's actual proposals makes you appreciate even more why the American economic system emphasizes property rights and individual enterprise matters. And understanding all of that context makes Marshall's argument about renewed Christian cultural engagement, just makes it more compelling and even more sobering. And that's the real dividend of intentional reading. It's not about gathering facts, but about interconnected understanding. You develop what I call intellectual coherence, the ability to see how different domains of knowledge inform and play off each other. They're integrated. And that's something you just can't get from skimming articles or listening to podcasts, no matter if it's even this podcast. It does require sustained engagement with serious books. And all of this, frankly, will help to shape your worldview. American conservatives, politically active Christians in general, or even more so American Catholics, do not have a good foundational worldview. They have had bad catechesis and bad moral theology. And for the last 50 to 75 years, we're living under that much darker world because of it. And it starts by reading, informing our consciences to be better. That's our first step. So if you're considering a reading goal for this coming year, here's my advice: don't aim for 34 books. I've been reading deeply for 15 plus years. I'm a veteran. Start small. Aim for 12 really good ones. Perhaps one per month. Read deeply. Take notes. Get a pocket notebook. Jot down little ideas that resonate with you. The average American adult reads roughly one book per month. And that that's probably down over the last, I think it is down over the last several decades. I think the average American would read somewhere between 12 to 15 books per year two or three decades ago. But just stick with 12 books or even make the goal smaller if you can. Make it just maybe four books per year. You can cheat like I do and consume many books on Audible and get the Kindle book for reference. You can add on. You don't have to pay full price for both. And you can get those big ideas on your iPad or on your phone. And then you can have a little pocket notebook and just jot notes down. And all of this will help you in the long run. It'll help you to be better. It'll help you to not doom scroll on your phones all day, every day. And more importantly, think about how each book connects to the others you've read. Let those ideas percolate. Jot them down, let them marinate. That's the fun of all this. Seriously, keep a little notebook with you and jot those ideas down. Discuss them with people who challenge you. Share them with friends. Share them with your men's group, your women's group. That's what I do. You know, the late great Charlie Kirk challenged us to learn deeply and read books. He read a lot of them. And I agree with him. I think we should read a lot of books too. And the goal isn't to be more impressive at the cocktail party. It's to become someone who thinks more clearly, understands history more accurately, and recognizes ideological seduction more readily, and frankly can contribute meaningfully to the serious conversations about serious things that we need to have in this country. And that is part of developing a comprehensive worldview. These five books are an excellent place to start that reading journey. And now, as always, for 2025 and beyond, let's keep fighting the good fight.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at teammojocademy.com, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your emojo up.