The chair of my college's government department told me yesterday that " Reflections on the Revolution in France" by Edmund Burke is the best tribute to conservatism you're likely to find anywhere. For a good statement of liberalism, I'd look for something by Louis Brandeis, who is probably the most articulate liberal of the 20th century.
I'm afraid more modern books on the subject will tend to be geared towards unfairly criticizing the other side while making little effort towards actually presenting the benefits of their side: Al Franken, Michael Moore, Ann Coulter, etc. are the worst choices you could make.
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The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
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