Ron Paul: a man of ideas and ideals: Ron Paul: A Life of Ideas, the first book-length biography of the noted congressman, tells the back story of the man behind the revolution, a best-selling book, and the Internet phenomenon.(Book review)

Ron Paul: A Life of Ideas, by Christopher Homer and Karen Kwiatkowski, Winnipeg, Manitoba: Variant Press, 2008, 256 pages, paperback, $14.95.

"Great and good are seldom the same man," Churchill once pointed out, and with considerable justification. Seldom if ever do men of overweening ambition and titanic acquisitiveness--the monarchs, empire-builders, military prodigies, and captains of finance and industry so beloved of the historians who write the narrative of civilization--embody the gentler virtues. Such men are, as a general rule, not the meek, the peacemakers, and poor in spirit who (we devoutly hope) will someday soon inherit the Earth.

Once in a very great while, however, great and good do converge in the same soul. Every so often, like Frank Capra's fictional dark horse Senate appointee Jefferson Smith, some unassuming individual is thrust into greatness by unexpected events. Such were Cincinnatus, Joan of Arc, and many of the Founding Fathers. Such, in our day, is Congressman Ron Paul.

Not very long ago, Congressman Ron Paul was anything but a household word, except to those of us in an apparently shrinking minority of freedom's partisans who had followed the career of Capitol Hill's "Dr. No" for years. When he announced his candidacy in the 2008 presidential campaign, many of us who knew or knew of him were taken off guard by his meteoric rise to national prominence. The Ron Paul presidential campaign, though not a success in conventional political terms, was responsible for more "pinch me" moments than this author can recall. Who, prior to the "Ron Paul Revolution," would have seriously imagined witness ing a discussion of Austrian economics and the causes of inflation on CNN or the Tonight Show? Who could have foreseen a presidential candidate making the case for a revival of the constitutionally mandated declaration of war? What soothsayer could have predicted an Internet-based presidential campaign that raised huge sums of money from ordinary donors, allowing the doctrines of free-market economics and constitutionally limited government power to be broadcast far and wide? Who could have foreseen the mass appeal of promises to abolish the Federal Reserve and retract the claws of the global American empire? Well, not this writer, anyway.

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With typical modesty, Congressman Paul himself believes that his ideas, not his persona, are the selling point. Freedom, he never tires of reminding audiences, is enduringly popular. Yet history's verdict on the popularity of freedom is ambiguous at best. The decline of personal liberty and the virtual abolition of constitutional limitations on government powers have not taken place in secret or without opposition. They have occurred, not because Americans have not resisted, but because they have not resisted enough.

Now, however, something is stirring on the national political landscape, if the movement associated with the Ron Paul campaign is any indicator. Thousands of Americans, especially those in the twenty-something demographic, have been cured of political apathy by the electric impact of Dr. Paul's message.