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

Benjamin Wiker, Ph.D.

Sept 2008 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Robertson Dean

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.

Ratings and reviews

Lmao people giving one stars are confused as a modern teen in the year 2022 who think they're a 2 spirit gender or a demigirl. People saying this book is religious drivel, anti communist, pro fascist & nazi supported is beyond hilarious. It's like the few brain cells on the internet combined into 1 full retard.

To find dangerous, one only need look at the hidebound garbage being pushed by this author. And while it is quite clear that Mr Wiker does not possess even a most basic understanding of the books he critiques, the truly troubling notion is not fully appreciated until one considers its intended target; namely young, malleable homeschoolers from superstitious, intellectually bereft households. Wiker, robbing children of an opportunity for intellectual development takes special sort of sleaze bag.

I don’t like giving one star or wasting my time on such absolute nonsense, but the notion that different ideas (from one group) should never exist is clearly a dictatorial absurdity. Because a small portion believes that there should be no diversity of opinion or thought, only one race that has one religion? Have fun with that fantasy 🤮

About the author

Benjamin Wiker writes full-time as a senior fellow at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and is coauthor, with Jonathan Witt, of A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature.

Robertson Dean has recorded hundreds of audiobooks in almost every genre. He's been nominated for several Audie Awards, won nine Earphones Awards, and was named one of AudioFile magazine's Best Voices of 2010. He lives in Los Angeles, where he records books and acts in film, TV, and (especially) on stage.