A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. I'm currently reading Applied Economics and will post about that one as well later on.
A Conflict of Visions is a brilliant and fascinating take on the roots of political struggles based on the visions which drive ideology. He does a fantastic job of discussing the differences without being biased.
The two visions he identifies are the Unconstrained Vision and the Constrained Vision. He goes into a great amount of detail on the origins of both and recent and relevant of examples of both.
I'm not sure that I can boil the two down very well without going into a great deal of detail. But, I'll give it a try. For starters the Unconstrained Vision (UV) focuses on the importance of equality of things and the Constrained Vision (CV) focuses on the importance of equality of opportunity. If your kids are in a 100 meter dash the UV believes that all the kids should get the same trophy for participation and the CV believes that trophies should be given in order of performance and that all of the kids will have better performances because they are in competition. The French Revolution is the UV, the American Revolution is the CV. The Garden of Eden is UV, life after the garden CV.
It's all way more in depth than that, but it's a start. Most of us will find elements of both in our own beliefs but leaning more one way. It certainly helped me understand and even appreciate the other side of the equation for me.
It's a great read. I highly recommend it.
Sarah Emily Jordan