Guardian of the Republic: An American Ronin’s Journey to Faith, Family, and Freedom

This thin political memoir by former Florida Congressman West, writing with Hickford, chronicles his heroic fight against adversity, as well as detailing his noble convictions and courage as a black Republican. This ambitious 53-year-old former Army lieutenant colonel’s upward-bound story shifts in tone between grandiose and faux folksy, with West referring to himself at one point as a “simple fella from the inner city.” Despite his 22-year Army career and time in office, his reflections on the political process and social redemption are shallow. Though his instincts about limited government will appeal to right-wing readers, this self-declared ronin (a samurai warrior who has no lord or master) who also invokes Plato’s guardians and Republic in his title, cannot do justice to the ideas of Thomas Jefferson, Karl Marx, or Booker T. Washington. References to organizer Saul Alinsky suggest a conspiratorial line of thought about progressive opposition. West’s solutions and reform plans recycle familiar Tea Party shibboleths, and though they will convince many sympathetic readers that he is a patriotic American, others may question his capacity for innovative public policy. (Apr.)