10 Books That Screwed Up the World, Benjamin Wiker, Ph.D.
10 Books That Screwed Up the World, Benjamin Wiker, Ph.D.
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10 Books That Screwed Up the World
And 5 Others That Didn't Help

Author: Benjamin Wiker, Ph.D.

Narrator: Robertson Dean

Unabridged: 6 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/08/2008


Synopsis

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 exposé, 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.

About Benjamin Wiker, Ph.D.

Benjamin Wiker received his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University and has taught at Marquette University, St. Mary's University, Thomas Aquinas College, and Franciscan University. He now writes full-time as a senior fellow at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and is also a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute. He has published several books, including A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature, coauthored with Jonathan Witt, and Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins' Case Against God, coauthored with Scott Hahn. He lives in rural Ohio with his wife and seven children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Scott on March 21, 2013

Looking over the previous reviews, I can see that Benjamin Wiker’s book really touched a nerve. Quite a few people hated it giving it only one star, and a few admitted that they were so upset they never finished it. Two people were so incensed that they said they wanted to physically harm the author......more

Goodreads review by John on January 02, 2022

10 Books That Screwed Up the World and 5 Others That Didn’t Help - Book Review Ideas have consequences. That’s what this book is about. In fact, Benjamin Wiker’s introduction is titled “Ideas have Consequences”. More specifically; bad ideas have bad consequences like the 40 – 100 million people kille......more

Goodreads review by Rachel on June 21, 2011

While I liked this book, I did not like or agree with some of the author's views. As a Christian, I believe this author is the exact kind of person who gives Christians a bad name. His judgemental views on being gay, working women, and abortion all kind of grated on my nerves. Several times I was go......more

Goodreads review by Bren fall in love with the sea. on September 27, 2024

DNF. Wow. I haven’t had a DNF in a while. Honestly, I should not be rating this. I usually do not rate books I don’t finish unless I’ve gotten a certain ways into them. I’m breaking my own rule. Maybe 20 pages? 50 pages? I don’t remember where I stopped. I read some of the other reviews and it seems......more

Goodreads review by George on May 08, 2015

Of course Progressives and even Liberals think this book is a pack of lies. But it's not. This book does a very good job of shedding light on the devilish plans the Progressives in politics have for this country. These books, the 10 especially, have done more damage than all the politicians and lawy......more