10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn't Help
by Benjamin Wiker
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Book Summary Information
Author: Benjamin WikerEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-05
ISBN: 1596980559
Number of pages: 260
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
Book Reviews of 10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn't Help
Book Review: Clear-thinking debunking of famously bad ideas
Summary: 5 Stars
The theme of this piece is that ideas have consequences, and influential bad ideas have bad consequences. This book should be required reading for college freshmen and/or high school seniors, because it is an analytical look at some particularly bad works that have inflicted considerable (and sometimes tremendous) harm on human society.
My favorite analysis was that of Margaret Mead's "Coming of Age in Samoa." Put simply, the author shows that this work is complete dreck. When I was a young college student Mead's book was assigned to us, and even then, at a time in my life when I was probably not equipped to look at the work in a properly analytical manner, I could tell that the book was essentially rubbish. Benjamin Wiker masterfully articulates the manifold flaws in the Mead book, and shows that her thesis, that Samoan society had almost no sexual mores or inhibitions, and that this is a healthier societal model, is arrant nonsense. Firstly, Mead had no idea how Samoan society really operated, and others have thoroughly debunked her characterization of the society. But more importantly, even if Mead had gotten her facts right (she did not) Mead's logic was hopelessly flawed. But this did not prevent her book from becoming one of the icons of the free-love movement of the 1960s and earlier, nonsense or not. Humans have an amazing capacity to addle their brains with bad ideas, and Mead's book is chalk-full of bad ideas that derive from a young woman's sexual fantasy, rather than the world as it was.
Another example is the debunking of the famous "Kinsey Report." This book is simple nonsense, and the author shows that it was most likely based on Kinsey and his group projecting their own sexual hang-ups onto the (more normal) general public.
Wiker's analysis of Marx and Engels' works on communism and socialism are workmanlike enough. Here I did not really find anything I had not read before, communism/socialism being pretty discredited today (except, ironically, in the US Government, alas.) I went to college in the early 1970s, when socialism was still viewed in the ivory towers of universities as being a viable competitor to capitalism. That is when this book would have really been of value. But, with what appears to be the return of socialistic ideas today, perhaps many need a refresher as to why these ideas do not work and cannot work.
This is a really good book that provides the reader with a good analytical framework to understand some pretty influential but bad books that most college students are exposed to at one time or another. We can hope that the day will come when this piece is also assigned, in order to counterbalance bad books like Meade's, Rosseau, Hobbs, Kinsey, and the others.
Summary of 10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn't Help
From Machiavelli to Marx, Nietzsche to Hitler, this volume offers a provocative look at some of Western civilization's most infamous authors and their literary works and shows how these works have inflicted great evil in the world--and still cause suffering.General Books
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