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10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn't Help
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$ 46.79
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$ 59.99 |
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| Item Number |
2128648 |
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Item Description...
Product Description
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.
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Item Specifications...
Dimensions: Length: 6.7" Width: 6.5" Height: 1"
Weight: 0.5 lbs.
Binding CD
Release Date Sep 8, 2008
ISBN 1400137918
EAN 9781400137916
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Availability 11 units.
Availability accurate as of May 24, 2012 02:12.
Usually ships within one to two business days from Chambersberg, PA.
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | What's God Got To Do With It? Jan 27, 2010 |
"Seize each one by its malignant heart and expose it to the light of day." No mincing words for Benjamin Wiker in his self-set task to demolish atheism and demonstrate our universal need for God. To his credit, he explores and argues well for the inherent nonsensicalness of many of the proffered arguments - particularly when viewed through the lens of experience and time (something I would argue is part of philosophical wisdom). Unfortunately, one gets the strong sense that underlying the "rational" arguments is a great desire to enlighten the poor benighted agnostics and atheists in the world who clearly have missed seeing God in the whole picture. The obvious solution to kingdoms of heaven on earth is kingdoms of heaven elsewhere even if where exactly that kingdom of heaven elsewhere is is never stated.
If only the problem of evil were so simple - it is with some wistfulness that I read this book and found it thoroughly entertaining and sometimes quite thought provoking - but in the end unsatisfying because of its apparent motivating agenda - not to teach that "bad ideas have bad consequences" but rather that the main good idea out there is God. Shoddy thinking whether a "Christian" or an atheist, agnostic or humanist is never desireable - and all forms of argument and thought can be used to engage in our benighted predilection for justifying horrendous behavior. | | |  | Great Book Jan 18, 2010 |
If nothing else, read, or listen, to the book on working mothers. No wonder the Bible declares that women are to "be busy at home."
Although giving too much good credit, thus unbiblical view, to Freud the book is loaded with well organized and thought out wisdom.
Thanks to the author for writing the book. | | |  | Critical analysis of Mead's work was itself biased Jan 6, 2010 |
I'll pick one aspect of this book to argue:
Mead wrote about a non-Christian society, as many anthropologists do. Her work was unfairly criticized because it challenged Christian moral values. Recent work published on Mead tend to verify the accuracy of her work. If it is accurate, is it right to be critical of the publication? Should all non-Christian materials be considered subversive if they don't pass the test?
Try The Trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy by Paul Shankman. | | | | Ideas Have Consequences, Sometimes Very Significant Negative Consequences Dec 19, 2009 |
Dr. Wiker's premise in writing this book is that ideas have consequences and in reviewing these 15 books he shows what the consequences are. (It's 15 because it's 10 books that screwed up the world and 5 more that didn't help.)
We are taught that tolerance is good and that means that all ideas have equal value and we ought to be equally accepting of all ideas, values and faiths. In our current world, a book like this is an anachronism, a throwback to a day when men and women knew how to think and understood when an idea was proved or not.
Dr. Wiker examines the ideas in these books and shows the horrendous consequences that they have brought about. In the psychology and graduate classes that I teach I have never once had a student say that Hitler's killing of millions of jews, gypsies, homosexuals, mixed races, Christians, etc was good. Yet these same students will steadfastly say, "your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth and they are both valid." When it is pointed out to them that Hitler's truth is just as valid as theirs and therefore he was right in doing what he did, they are unable to wrap their minds around the concept and rather than thinking their way through the contradiction and coming out the other side, they seem to go into reset mode and they continue parroting "your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth" and they continue believing that Hitler was wrong.
They are unable to see the contradiction or else they do not want to do the work of thinking. Dr. Wiker makes the ideas in this book easy to understand, he is an excellent writer, but the book is about the consequences of ideas. Certain philosophers were used by Hitler, Stalin and Mao to justify their killing of hundreds of millions of people. The ideas those philosophers propagated may not have been intended to motivate people to destroys hundreds of millions of people, but those were the consequences.
Dr. Wiker points these consequences out in very clear language. If you want to understand some of the things you have been taught or you want to teach others that understanding, buy this book and encourage others to buy it or read it. Where did the "Greatest Good for the Greatest number" come from. Look at the chapter on William James and not only do you understand it, you see the elitist thought of James behind it. Who would decide the greatest good for the greatest number, why William James and those like him. Elitist to the core.
This is a great book and I highly recoomend it. | | | | The destruction wrought by atheism and denial of sin Dec 17, 2009 |
Apparently I see this book in a somewhat different light than the other reviewers. At first I didn't see the connections between these books as Dr Wiker deconstructed them. For example Dr Wiker starts with a critical review of the Prince. I did not see Machiavelli as anti-God or an atheist, nor did I feel Machiavelli was intending anything beyond explaining how to get and keep power. In fact the first 5 books span the period from 1513 to 1755 and generally provide descriptions of man as an animal - amoral and without sin, because if their is no God, there is no moral boundary and if there is no moral boundary to cross then there is no sin. These introductory books yield a description of humanity as materialistic whose existence is governed by pain and pleasure with pleasure being "good" and pain being "evil." These books lay the foundation for the next ten where Dr Wiker develops his thesis that these books have done unimaginable harm to the human race by freeing man from sin by eliminating God.
By denying God, both directly or indirectly, these books have led to the horrors of Communism as Marx and Lenin tried to save the world from oppression by the rich and powerful. If God does not exist then there is no morality other than what man can impose. But once God has been eliminated man must create his own morality and we are then led to Sanger and Hitler who used Darwin's "Descent of Man" to justify Eugenics without regard for any moral restraint because atheism does not see any moral boundary other than those imposed by man. Once the moral boundaries of society have been breached Dr Wiker takes us through the world of junk science that is used to justify the sexual perversions of Kinsey and distorted sexuality of Mead and Friedan,who essentially think man should be free from any moral restraint.
For me Dr Wiker did an outstanding job of tracing the roots and development of atheism in the world and how its practice has so damaged our society. Because by removing God the atheists have left us with no moral boundaries and without those moral boundaries given by God, then there is no sin. I thought Dr Wiker's deconstruction of these books not only showed the genesis of atheism but also how destructive atheism is and continues to be. This is a very well written book that builds slowly as Dr Wiker leads the reader through the chronological evolution of atheism and the damage wrought by this denial of God and Sin. An excellent book and well worth the reading.
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