An scribe with ideological leverage on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific cautious political author, American constitutionalist and faith-based political theorist. As an anti-communist follower of the John Birch humanity, and limited-government activist, Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a broad range of topics: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World alignment conspiracies, even parenting. Skousen believed that American political, social, and financial elites were working with communists to foist a world government on the joined States. Beck applauded Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's The nude Communist and particularly The 5,000 Year Leap (originally published in 1981), which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life". According to Skousen's relation, assess Skousen, Leap reflects Skousen's "passion for the joined States Constitution", which he "felt was motivated by God and the cause behind America's success as a nation". The publication is suggested by Beck as "required reading" to realise the current American political countryside and become a "September twelfth person". Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 version of Leap and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government class on Amazon for some months. In 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative Weekly benchmark criticized Beck's conspiratorial angled, terming him "a Skousenite". Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, scribe of the 2010 book widespread absurdity: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, which characteristics an whole section on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen", refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite scribe and biggest influence", while noting that he authored four of the 10 books on Beck's 9-12 task required-reading register.
In his consideration of Beck and Skousen, Continetti said that one of Skousen's works "draws on Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and wish (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th years is the product of mystery societies in conflict", noting that in Beck's novel The Overton Window, which Beck recounts as "faction" (fiction based on fact), one of his individual features states "Carroll Quigley laid open the design in Tragedy and Hope, the only hope to bypass the tragedy of war was to bind together the finances of the world to foster global steadiness and peace."
Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz states that beside Skousen, Robert W. Welch, Jr., founder of the John Birch humanity, is a key ideological base of Beck's worldview. According to Wilentz: "[Beck] has conveyed neo-Birchite ideas to an audience beyond any that Welch or Skousen might have dreamed of."
Other publications that Beck regularly cites on his programs are Amity Shlaes's The disregarded Man, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen's A Patriot's annals of the joined States, and Burton W. Folsom, Jr.'s New Deal or Raw Deal. Beck has furthermore urged his listeners to read The Coming Insurrection, a publication by a French Marxist assembly considering what they see as the imminent disintegrate of capitalist heritage, and The Creature from Jekyll isle, which contends that facets of the U.S. government Reserve system assault financial municipal liberties, by G. Edward Griffin.
On June 4, 2010, Beck endorsed Elizabeth Dilling's 1936 work The Red Network: A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, commenting "this is a book, The Red Network, this came in from 1936. People – [Joseph] McCarthy was wholeheartedly right ... This is, who were the communists in America."Beck was admonished by an array of persons, encompassing Menachem Z. Rosensaft and Joe Conason, who stated that Dilling was an outspoken anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer.
