10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn't Help

By Benjamin Wiker

Book Overview

You've heard of the "Great Books"?

These are their evil opposites. From Machiavelli's The Prince to Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto to Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, these "influential" books have led to war, genocide, totalitarian oppression, family breakdown, and disastrous social experiments. And yet these authors' bad ideas are still popular and pervasive--in fact, they might influence your own thinking without your realizing it. Here with the antidote is Professor Benjamin Wiker. In his scintillating new book, 10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn't Help, he seizes each of these evil books by its malignant heart and exposes it to the light of day. In this witty, learned, and provocative expos , you'll learn:

--Why Machiavelli's The Prince was the inspiration for a long list of tyrannies (Stalin had it on his nightstand)

--How Descartes's Discourse on Method "proved" God's existence only by making Him a creation of our own ego

--How Hobbes's Leviathan led to the belief that we have a "right" to whatever we want

--Why Marx and Engels's Communist Manifesto could win the award for the most malicious book ever written

--How Darwin's Descent of Man proves he intended "survival of the fittest" to be applied to human society

--How Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil issued the call for a world ruled solely by the "will to power"

--How Hitler's Mein Kampf was a kind of "spiritualized Darwinism" that accounts for his genocidal anti-Semitism

--How the pansexual paradise described in Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa turned out to be a creation of her own sexual confusions and aspirations

--Why Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male was simply autobiography masquerading as science

Witty, shocking, and instructive, 10 Books That Screwed Up the World offers a quick education on the worst ideas in human history--and how we can avoid them in the future.

• Format: MP3 CD
• Language: English
• ISBN: B08XNBY852
• ISBN13: 9798200133161
• Release Date: March 2021
• Publisher: Tantor Audio
• Length: 1 Pages

Customer Reviews

Crying in the Wilderness

I remember almost thirty years ago a brother-in-law retorting, during a discussion about child-rearing, that he intended to raise his children as wild stallions in a state of nature. I recall commenting that the poor deluded man was merely repeating what he had heard in his sophomore sociology and psychology classes and that, in doing so, he manifested his ignorance of the subject. One reviewer of Dr. Wiker's book, "10 Books that Screwed up the World," offered the following thought: "Ideas can certainly be dangerous but, once they are articulated in print, a thinking person has an opportunity to consider them rationally and counter them. This process is much more difficult if we are working from an oral articulation of ideas because orators can sway emotion and equivocate more effectively." While intended to be a criticism of Professor Wiker ("Is this guy an enemy of free speech?"), the critic, in fact, makes his point; few people have actually read these books. Like my brother-in-law, had they actually read Rousseau, other than Emile, had they actually read Hobbes, other than the usual snippets of Leviathan offered, had they read Darwin's the Descent of Man, Machiavelli's The Prince, etc., they might have been better able to digest the unfounded and destructive utopian visions of Marx, Lenin, Hitler, and assess the illusions conjured by Freud, Sanger, Mead, and Kinsey. The reality is that few who have proffered these writers as icons of enlightened intellectualism, namely the professorial and teaching class, have taken the time to consider their products rationally. And, certainly those to whom it has been asserted that the writings comprise a source of deep reflection beneficial to humanity - essential to an understanding of humanitas - have not taken the opportunity to consider them rationally and counter the assertions. These vapid arguments have seeped into the mainstream only because they were developed by "so-and-so." In other words, the foundation is ipse dixit; the proof is hearsay. That's why Professor Wiker bemoans the fact that the writings he has singled out have had such profound influence. If writings are not actually read and subjected to rational assessment, it would be better had they never been written. Unfortunately, the writings that Wiker addresses have been and continue to be highly detrimental to the body politic and the human soul. That is the more important reason that they should never have been written. "10 Books that Screwed up the World" is easily read in a couple of sittings; is readily understood; and, is a must read especially for young people headed for the "castles" of higher learning.

Wiker hits it on the nail once again! (Or did he unscrew something?)

Ben Wiker has written an important and entertaining work. This book is important, because it details the thoughts of 15 people who have so thoroughly shaped the way most of us think about things, that we don't even realize their influence on us. Most of us haven't read these books, but all of us can recognize the peculiar threads of thought that are interwoven throughout the fabric of our society as Wiker brilliantly lays them before us. Finally, I think his conclusions are right on. The book is entertaining, because Ben Wiker is a smart and funny guy. You may not always agree with him (although I myself mostly do), but no one would think his time poorly spent reading this book. Wiker can turn a phrase in a masterful way, and if you have even just a shred of a sense of humor, he'll make smile, even if you do it ruefully. The sheer clarity of his presentation, both of the authors he considers and of his own thesis, make this book a delightful read. To address a smaller issue, however, I wish his title didn't use the unfortunate expression, "Screwed Up," since it is simply a gentler version of the expression that uses the "fudge-like" word. It demeans the dignity due to conjugal love and tinges the beautiful with unnecessary, crude connotations. That said, I loved the book. Definitely worth the price of the book and time I invested in it. Way to go, Mr. Wiker!

Well worth the read!

Disturbing, witty, insightful, enlightened, often humorous and certainly worthwhile. Benjamin Wiker's "10 Books that Screwed up the world, and 5 others that didn't help", is not just a book on Philosophy, Theology or social comminatory. Dr Wiker is detailing the slippery slope our culture has been trotting down for the last four hundred plus years. Some of what I liked about this book is the thoroughness with which Machiavelli, Descartes ET el., and their works are covered. I also like the additional background, Dr. Wiker offers to help to frame and flesh out the authors and the works discussed. The aforementioned background I found immensely useful in my attempt to understand where the likes of Machiavelli, Descartes, and Hobbes were coming from; and equally as important in understanding how Engels and Darwin provided a faulty foundation for Hitler, Freud and others to follow. I believe the author has done the hard reading and research necessary to provide even handed diagnosis of the books, theories, politics and political philosophy under discussion. He does an excellent job of tying together the domino effect of one bad idea built upon a previous bad idea. His book is impressively researched and thoughtfully laid out. Ben Wiker states on page 191"The desire that something be true, rather than the desire for truth itself, may well be the root of all evil. It is certainly the origin of all ideology, and ideology was the source of much of the evil in the past century." I found this quote summarized many of the findings of this book. Throughout this book, it is apparent the authors discussed looked to themselves as the source of truth, rather than seeking guidance from another source; God. Well worth the read! This book is a quick and easy read. The author presents his ideas in a witty conversational manor I have a background in Sociology and have taught Sociological theory on the college level. If and when I return to the college classroom I will use this very readable and easily understandable book as one of my required texts. Read this book before it is banned on college campuses, buried and burned by the media.