Audiobook6 hours
10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn't Help
Written by Benjamin Wiker, Ph.D.
Narrated by Robertson Dean
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
()
About this audiobook
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 expose, 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.
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 expose, 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.
Related to 10 Books That Screwed Up the World
Related audiobooks
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Devil's Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago Volume 3: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prince Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Crowd - A Study of the Popular Mind Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWake Up: Why the world has gone nuts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heaven on Earth: The Rise, Fall, and Afterlife of Socialism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Atheism on Trial: Refuting the Modern Arguments Against God Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago Volume 1: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Evil Works: Understanding and Overcoming the Destructive Forces That Are Transforming America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Antichrist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago Volume 2: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Politics Classics: Freedom, Equality, Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5They're Not Listening: How The Elites Created the Nationalist Populist Revolution Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Story of George Orwell's Masterpiece Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Literary Criticism For You
The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fahrenheit 451 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shakespeare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lord of the Flies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Catcher in the Rye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51984 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bad Feminist: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meet Me in the Margins Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mythologies: The Complete Edition, in a New Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To Kill a Mockingbird Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Conspiracy against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outsiders Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5And Yet...: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book Thief Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others' Eyes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Writing (and Writers): A Miscellany of Advice and Opinions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Snape: The Definitive Analysis of Hogwarts's Mysterious Potions Master Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Of Mice and Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for 10 Books That Screwed Up the World
Rating: 3.1904761904761907 out of 5 stars
3/5
42 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5This book should be called: 10 books church hate ‘cause take off its power throughtout history (and as a religious dumb, I’ll try to justify using nowadays falacious trump’s logic)
This book is not worthy for nothing, it’s just sad. - Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5This guy is out of his depth.
I feel like I'm reading a collection of essays by my very well-meaning, but inexperienced undergraduate students. While it's kind of interesting, the guy hasn't done enough homework and I don't know how this got published.3 people found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mr. Wiker looks at Machiavelli, DeCartes, Hobbes, Marx, Darwin, Hitler, Nietsche, Mead, Sanger, and Kinsey and offers, in admittedly 20/20 hindsight, how this books negatively influenced thinking at the time they were published. Then he goes on to explain how these books are still influencing current day ideas, life and values.
There is no doubt that some of these books, although not necessarily intentionally by the author, have come to be seen as “evil”. Mr. Wiker looks at them individually and as a successive group, one publication sometimes feeding off another in tone and idea. The author makes some good points without preaching. An interesting read, one that made me think and makes me want to delve a little deeper into the books he included.3 people found this helpful
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5While I agree with a few of the author's book choices, some of the books he choose as corrupting forces seemed to be reflections of their time period rather than written with the intent to corrupt the world around them as Wiker asserts. A few interesting facts were presented here and there, but mostly it was a warning against atheist authors. Not sure what I thought this would be about, but this definitely didn't meet my "expectations".
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love this very accessible and compelling review of very significant scerw ups
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5To be short: Benjamin Wiker has no clue what he's writing about.It is hard to take seriously someone who pedantically goes out of his way to state that Descartes wrote his "Meditation on First Philosophy" in French rather than Latin, when, in fact, anyone with half a brain could have checked that Descartes, of course, wrote it in Latin—it was another six years before a French translation was published.It is also hard to take seriously a fool who does not list major religious works at the top of the list of books that caused harm in the world.If you're a rightwing religious nut, this book will be right up your alley.
5 people found this helpful
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I've only read a few of the books mentioned in this one. A couple of them, I did not like at all. However, the author's approach to these books is, in itself, very dangerous and part of the problem with conservatives in this country. The author does not contribute anything intellectually viable or new with his arguments about these "loathsome" books.
The author thinks that is his Catholicism is a reasonable position to hold and attempts to tie all these books to atheism; hence they are inherently wrong (according to the author). His arguments are fraught with logical fallacies and the only people who would be convinced by them are biased, true-believers like him.4 people found this helpful
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Should be titled: 10 books I didn't understand. The only book the author likes is the bible. I regret giving the author the courtesy of finishing this book.
3 people found this helpful