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

Aug 31, 2012 Meaghan rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009, literary-criticism, books-i-hated

It's not very often that a book makes me want to go out and commit physical violence on the author, but this book definitely takes the cake. I was seriously pissed off only one chapter in, and the only reason I finished at all is to write a review online and warn people about this sorry excuse for a book.

To be fair, the author does a good job of exposing the fallacies in the arguments he writes about, and showing just how ludicrous and/or dangerous the philosophies and theories would be when app...more It's not very often that a book makes me want to go out and commit physical violence on the author, but this book definitely takes the cake. I was seriously pissed off only one chapter in, and the only reason I finished at all is to write a review online and warn people about this sorry excuse for a book.

To be fair, the author does a good job of exposing the fallacies in the arguments he writes about, and showing just how ludicrous and/or dangerous the philosophies and theories would be when applied to real life. But his fine use of logic was tainted with bias and his own fallacies.

Dr. Wiker equates atheism with immorality, even evil. He doesn't seem to realize that you can be moral and not believe in God. One of the books he names, a book by Sigmund Freud, is only on his list because it repudiates religion. With almost every book he notes that the author was an atheist or simply rejected Christianity. In fact, Dr. Wiker continuously sneers at anything outside the conservative Christian framework. He has no use for liberal values and even for liberal Christianity -- in fact, he says liberal Christianity is a good tool for dictators because of its "flexibility." (I can't think of a single dictator who's a liberal Christian.)

I also noticed some glaring misconceptions in Wiker's writing which tie back to his bias against atheists and liberals. For instance, he claims that people who say "I have the right to control over my body" really mean "I want to have an abortion" and people who say "I have the right to privacy" are actually perverts who want to commit nasty sexual practices. That is absolute nonsense. Hasn't he ever heard the catchphrase, "I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it"? There are plenty of people, myself included, who believe in a woman's right to have an abortion if she chooses, but who have never had an abortion themselves and probably wouldn't even if faced with a crisis pregnancy.

This book, I think, could only be liked by people like Wiker himself: that is, conservative evangelical Christians with very narrow minds. I was disgusted by it.(less)

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Aug 22, 2008 Jason Pettus rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

This is one of four books that recently came in and out of my life without me finishing, which to tell you the truth almost made the snarky "Too Awful to Finish" list of essays at the CCLaP website; which is a real shame, because at first it seems like it's going to be a delightful little nonfiction r...more (Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

This is one of four books that recently came in and out of my life without me finishing, which to tell you the truth almost made the snarky "Too Awful to Finish" list of essays at the CCLaP website; which is a real shame, because at first it seems like it's going to be a delightful little nonfiction romp, a series of essays by one of these pop-culture intellectuals concerning ten infamous books like Mein Kampf and Beyond Good and Evil, whose names have been cited over the centuries to justify all manner of evil. Ah, but then very quickly into it, the smart reader starts noticing a whole plethora of odd details about this manuscript: for example, that the main argument behind most of the essays seems to be that these books all go against the word of the Christian God, which is what made them "screw up the world;" that the entire second half of the book is a condemnation of such liberal touchstones as Darwin, Kinsey, and The Feminine Mystique; that the author currently teaches at a biblical theology center, and that all the people providing quotes for the dust jacket are prominent conservative Christians as well; that even the publishing company is a small press specializing in conservative Christian books. (And this is to say nothing, of course, of the embedded unattributed Christian Bible verses found scattered throughout this manuscript, their attributions deliberately removed so as to not cause attention to themselves.) Add it all together, and the resulting view is pretty clear; this is a book very plainly trying to secretly further a conservative Christian agenda, one that has the gall to directly compare Betty Friedan to Adolph Hitler, with every single usual stereotypical trait of "Christian publishing" deliberately stripped out in this case, obviously to try to "sneak" the book into mainstream popular culture as much as possible. (Hint: Look at the shape the front-cover image just happens to make, oh so subtly and without the book itself making any special mention of it.) It's deceitful, ethically shady, and I won't be a part of it; the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth, frankly, and I wish now I had never come across this book to begin with. Regnery and Wiker, please save the sermons for Sunday morning, and leave the rest of us alone.

Out of 10: 0.0(less)

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Aug 03, 2009 Michael Foley rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The author makes stirring and poignant observations about how pages bound together in one book, regardless of how crazy the idea, it will gain momentum if the idea is WELCOMED. Humans will latch onto philosophies if it excuses their behavior, or makes them feel good.

This book turned out to be more of a lesson about how ATHEISTS have screwed up the world. Although I do not believe that the average "Joe Atheist" is a threat to society, this book does make some interesting cases that are worth re...more

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Jun 12, 2013 John Barbour rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biblical-worldview, history

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 killed under the bad idea of communism (page 126). It is actually a mini-history of bad philosophy or more specifically ideology each building on the other from Machiavelli to Kinsey and Friedan.

Machiavel...more

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Sep 12, 2009 IWB rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

[Please Note: This review was written initially at a time in which Goodreads had a markedly shorter limit on the number of characters one could use; thus the review reflects this fact as I tried to use characters as economically as possible. Also, I had so much more to say about this book than just Wiker's poor take on Descartes. At the time, I wanted to further comment on his deplorable sections on Darwin, Hobbes, and Nietzsche. Now, I simply don't have any desire to rummage threw the garbage a...more [Please Note: This review was written initially at a time in which Goodreads had a markedly shorter limit on the number of characters one could use; thus the review reflects this fact as I tried to use characters as economically as possible. Also, I had so much more to say about this book than just Wiker's poor take on Descartes. At the time, I wanted to further comment on his deplorable sections on Darwin, Hobbes, and Nietzsche. Now, I simply don't have any desire to rummage threw the garbage anymore.]

This book is a dogmatic polemic, full of personal attacks, sarcasm, & metaphor ridden “analysis”. Anyone who wants a clear, analytical critique had better go elsewhere. This book is terrible, contains no serious scholarship, & is an uncritical diatribe, strong on emotive language & cutesy analogies, but weak in substance & precise reasoning. Not only is the book full of ad hominem & circumstantial fallacies, but also substantive mistakes & interpretive caricatures. He doesn’t define the technical terms he uses, nor does he situate them historically. An instance of this is his remarks about skepticism, which he says is an “intellectual disease that arises among people who are both well fed & well read.” The book is full of this drivel. We get incomplete descriptions, more rhetorical than lexical. This book is intellectually irresponsible & reflects the extent to which many Christian authors perpetuate anti-intellectualism.
Here are a few problems with Wiker’s claims in his Discourse section. He sums up Descartes’ project “Descartes attacked skepticism, but only by denying reality. He proved God’s existence, but only by making it depend on our thinking Him into existence."
This is all wrong. Descartes didn’t attack skepticism directly, as if his entire project was the negative one of refuting skeptical arguments. His project was a positive one of finding a necessarily certain basis of knowledge. He did this via a method in which he would assent to what is true just in case its falsehood is inconceivable. The epistemic intuition here is that all judgments of knowledge should be free from relevant defeaters, & Descartes took possible falsehood as a relevant defeater. Consider Descartes’ method, which Wiker maligns more than explains. Wiker is wrong to say that the method is “doubt everything.” The mere act of doubting does not constitute a method anymore than the mere act of believing does. Descartes uses a specific kind of method for arriving at knowledge. This includes the act of doubting, but is not limited to it. For Descartes, knowledge admits of degrees corresponding to degrees of reality. The object of knowledge is substance, with God as ultimate object of knowledge, but the secondary substances of thought & extension can be known also. Descartes arrives at certainty that he is a thinking substance, that God exists, & that there is an external world of extended substance. Descartes’ method is an intellective approach for gaining indubitable knowledge. The key notion that Wiker misses is ’hyperbolic’. Descartes asks that we take our beliefs & subject them to a strict scrutiny of indubitability; he wants us to take all beliefs as possibly false until we can show them to be certain. His method is a skepticism that is exaggerated in that it is used as a theoretical tool, to be dissolved after he demonstrates that the method allows us to arrive at certain knowledge. Wiker interprets Descartes’ method as a practical one, for our daily use. That isn’t how Descartes intends the method to run. It’s a theoretical method, not a practical one. Wiker gets it wrong.
The method of doubt is the means by which one arrives at the indubitability of the claim: I am thinking, therefore I am. After doubting his beliefs, Descartes still knows that if he thinks, there must be something existing that is doing the thinking. He realizes that even if his sense perceptions deceive him, even if he can’t tell his dreaming experiences from his wakeful ones, & even if an evil demon were deceiving him about the veracity of his mental operations, he is still thinking. The method of doubt has thus yielded a certain truth.
But Wiker thinks it “ridiculous to single out thinking as the act by which I know I am existing.” He thinks that Descartes’ cogito formula is: “While I am doing X, I can’t doubt my existence b/c I have to exist to do X.” He concludes that Descartes’ cogito “is not essentially tied to thinking.” Wiker’s position is that Descartes could have been just as certain about his existence if he had claimed: I smell, therefore I am. This misses the point. The point of the cogito is not to establish that one exists, but to establish an indubitable proposition from which to build a foundation of knowledge. Of course I must exist if I smell something, b/c non-existent objects do not smell things. That is not Descartes’ claim, contrary to Wiker’s analysis. Descartes arrived at a claim that admits of no relevant defeators-the claim cannot possibly be false. This is not the case with claims about physical actions such as smelling. That was the point of Descartes’ skeptical arguments. My sense perceptions might be wrong. I could have the sensation of smelling a rose, but unknowingly I may be smelling a rose scented candle. Worse, I may think I’m having the sensation of smelling a rose, but I could be dreaming it. Still worse, all of my experiences could be fabrications generated by a deceiving demon. In the first case the reliability of my perceptions are in doubt, but at least I seem to know that I’m having experiences of the world. In the second case, the possibility of experiencing the external world is in doubt, since if I can’t know if I’m dreaming or not, then I can’t trust that I’m having any actual experience. At least if that were the case, Descartes thinks, I still have knowledge of conceptual notions-whether I’m dreaming or not, all triangles have 3 sides. Even this can be brought into doubt by the evil demon, if he were tricking me into thinking all triangles have 3 sides. Suppose that all my mental operations were manipulated by the evil demon each time I perform mathematical operations so that, while in fact 2+2 does not equal 4, I still believe it does. It seems that the truth of any proposition can fall under one of these 3 skeptical hypotheses. Yet, Descartes realizes that there is one proposition whose truth is indubitable-I am thinking, therefore I am. Wiker is wrong.
In Descartes’ ontology, putatively real things such as color, sound, taste, odor do not exist in things. They are qualities of a thing relative to a perceiver’s sensations. Thus qualities are not modes of substances b/c qualities are not in substances. For Descartes, only substance exists. God is infinite substance, & thinking substance & extended substance are finite substances. We come to know substance by means of the attributes of that substance. We also come to know a substance by means of its modes. For instance, body is known to us by means of the attribute of extension; but we can understand this extended body has having varying shapes, lengths, widths, depths. Such variances of body are modes of body. This holds similarly for the substance of mind. Mind is known to us by means of the attribute of thought; but we can understand this thinking mind as having various thoughts over time. Each particular thought is a mode of thought itself.
Descartes’ ontology is intertwined with his epistemology. Only what is real can be known, what can be known is substance. A key to Descartes’ epistemology is the notion of clear & distinct perception. Whatever is clearly & distinctly perceived is real, since what is real is substance, we have clear & distinct perceptions of substance. This eliminates sense perceptions from being clear perceptions, since ideas generated from the senses are obscure. They are obscure b/c they never are solely accessible to the mind intellectively; rather they are always combined with other ideas, which results in a conflation of ideas of both mind & body. A distinct perception is a species of clear perception whose difference is that it is separate from any & all other ideas. Any idea that is part of another idea or shared with another idea is not a distinct perception. An idea of this sort is a confused idea. A distinct perception, thus, contains within itself only what is clear. Since what is real corresponds to what can be perceived clearly & distinctly, & conversely what can be perceived clearly & distinctly corresponds to what is real, any relation that holds ontologically will have epistemic consequences. It is Descartes’ theory of distinctions that expresses these epistemic consequences & ontological relations. Descartes could not have said, “I smell, therefore I am” for these reasons. 1) odors are mere qualities relative to an agent’s sensations. Qualities are not in objects; hence, they are not ultimately real. If something is not real, it cannot be the basis for knowledge. 2) We can only have knowledge of what is real, which is substance. Smelling gets us only to qualities, not to substance; it doesn’t even get us to modes of a substance. 3) We can only know substance by means of clear & distinct perceptions. Odors are confused ideas & cannot be objects of knowledge. All these reasons spell out why Wiker’s interpretation of the cogito is wrong. Contrary to Wiker’s claim, it was not ridiculous for Descartes to single out thinking.
Finally: Descartes never believed that his thoughts created reality. Descartes said the opposite: that thought can't “impose any necessity on things, but the necessity which lies in the thing itself determines me to think in this way.” Descartes’ proof for God’s existence purports to demonstrate that God’s existence is necessary. It follows from Descartes’ claim that God determines him to think, since what is necessary determines his thought & God is that necessity. This is contra Wiker’s claim that the proof for God’s existence makes God’s existence depend on our thought of Him. Descartes holds to the opposite view: our idea of God depends on the necessity of God’s existence, not the contingency of our own thought.
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Jun 21, 2011 Coffeeandknits rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 going to give up on this book, but I kept coming back to it. Maybe I like to find things to argue about, I don't know.

This all being said, I did learn a great deal about books and authors I'd never rea...more

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Nov 03, 2010 Flelly added it · review of another edition

Shelves: abandoned

This book is a POS. Total crap.

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Nov 12, 2012 Elin rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: audiobook, 1-star, non-fiction, reference, unable-to-finnish

This is one of the most idiotic books I've ever read. And I have read plenty of bad literature. 10 Books that screwed up the world is a mans attempt to give atheism the finger in as many ways he think is possible.

Benjamin Wiker makes the wicked assumption that faith (believing in God)is the same thing as morality.

"They want all the benefits of God not looking over their shoulders exacting moral demands but they also want an universe with moral structure."

I do not see why an atheist would not kn...more This is one of the most idiotic books I've ever read. And I have read plenty of bad literature. 10 Books that screwed up the world is a mans attempt to give atheism the finger in as many ways he think is possible.

Benjamin Wiker makes the wicked assumption that faith (believing in God)is the same thing as morality.

"They want all the benefits of God not looking over their shoulders exacting moral demands but they also want an universe with moral structure."

I do not see why an atheist would not know the meaning of right or wrong. According to Mr Wiker the atheist only knows what feels good or feels "ouch". Where the empathy and normal commonsense comes in to play, he doesn't say.

He also claims that the atheist doesn't outright say what he/she realy wants, like; "I have the right to control over my body" it really means "I want to have an abortion". Or the other example is "I have the right to privacy" but actually wants to be a pervert and left alone. This is for me so stupid I have trouble finding the right words to explain how stupid. I want a woman to have the right to have an abortion is she wants to, it doesn't mean I am longing to have one. Or that my need for privacy means I want to cage up small children in my basement and use them as sexual playthings.

Mr Wiker completely ignores the evils that have been done in the name of religion. Mr Wiker also used the Evolution as the reason for Hitler, abortion and communism. If it hadn't been for Darwin, the feeble minded would never had been looked upon as a burden and it wouldn't have been "bad" to be different. Because Morality (aka Religion) is filled with love and need to take care of each other.

Not so sure the "witches" that was burnt on stakes, in the name of God, would agree on this statement. Or the poor people who happened to meet the crusaders. Or homosexuals that are being "converted to straight".

But Darwin isn't the only bad Atheist that has written a book. (Then it would have been called "1 book that screwed up the world...") Talking about Nietzsche, Benjamin Wiker writes:

"Unlike most atheists Nietzsche was brutally honest about what atheism really meant and that honesty ultimately cost him his sanity...//... No up or down. No good or evil. Just sheer human will swimming in an indifferent, if not, hostile cosmos."

I thought, when I started listening to this book, that I would get more facts. This is mere a persons twisted beliefs. And I am chocked that Mr Wiker hasn't included The Bibel as one of the 10 books.

I wont recommend this book to anyone. Maybe if you have rage issues and need something to focus your anger on. This is way to narrow minded for me, I think I'll need to re read Richard Dawkins book: The God Delusion to clear my mind.(less)

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Jun 02, 2012 Lyn rated it 2 of 5 stars

OK, here is one that I will not finish. No need to, got the point. I picked this up thinking it would be witty and a good summary of some controversial tombs of philosophy. A few pages in and I see that this critique is really just a vehicle for the very conservative author to blast liberal, ATHIEST schools of thought and the world he sees as screwed up is a non-Christian world. I am a Christ-follower, but not conservative (but neither am I liberal) and so I am always a little taken aback when I...more

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Jul 26, 2011 Ken Roebuck rated it 5 of 5 stars

The 10 Books that Screwed Up the World by Dr. Benjamin Wiker is an intriguing read for those brave souls with a penchant for philosophy or the history of western civilization. From these ten infamous books Dr. Wiker aptly demonstrates how godless atheistic philosophies and thought have been malevolently used by those in power to promulgate massive human suffering in the 20th century. Starting with Machiavelli's The Prince whose insidious influence permeates all the other works particularly the a...more

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Feb 24, 2010 Peter rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: audio-book, essays-commentary, history, politics, philosophy

A devastating look at the books we all encounter in college; the books that changed the world. They are read (sort of), discussed, held up, and revered. Wiker critically analyzes each book (The Prince, Leviathan, Communist Manifesto, etc), and cuts through the dangerous cultural relevant-ism of the present. Using the dictum - ideas have consequences - Wilker addresses the arguments of the authors, often designed not so much to build up, but to tear down, and cut free their vision of society free...more

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Apr 05, 2012 Pedro Diaz rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: shit

"skepticism is a kind of intellectual disease that generally arises among people who are both well fed and well read" how can you fuck up a book so early on? (pg.19)
as opposed to what mr.Wiker? a illiterate person that is malnourished? are they the holders of the truth and virtue because of their disadvantages?,because they have no other option than to believe in the supernatural since there is no other route available?. how can you judge an intellectual work (he is talking about the discourse...more

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Jun 28, 2012 John rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book makes me want to commit violence or some other heinous crime against the author. I was sorely pissed off by the end of the book. I felt bamboozled into keeping an open mind only to find myself struck with a final-uppercut-blow of the author’s seething missives and tainted biases.

In fairness and in the spirit of constructive criticism, which the book lacked, the author seem to do a decent job of exposing fallacies in the arguments he covers and explaining how dangerous the philosophies...more

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Mar 21, 2013 Scott Klemm rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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. Wow! So much for the old adage attributed to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

What has got these people so riled up? The short answer is...more 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. Wow! So much for the old adage attributed to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

What has got these people so riled up? The short answer is – the author is a Christian. The 10 books he selected as being the most damaging to our world were all written by atheists who espoused moral relativism. Perhaps if the book had been written by a stereotypic, bible thumping, fundamentalist preacher, it could simply be ignored or made into an object of derision. But, Dr. Wiker is an articulate, well educated scholar with a B.A. in political philosophy, M.A. in religion and a Ph.D. in ethics.

The progression of ideas advanced in the books critiqued by Dr. Wiker might be viewed as a branching tree. (Analogy is mine, not Wiker’s.) The trunk from which all branches sprout is Machiavelli’s The Prince (1513). Machiavelli gets the ball rolling by counseling the prince to shed all moral and religious scruples. Wiker sums it up, “No act is so evil that some necessity or benefit cannot mitigate it.” From this base sprouts several larger branches. One can be called the eugenics branch. It begins with Charles Darwin’s Descent of Man with secondary branches for Margaret Sanger and Adolf Hitler. Another may be labeled the ruthless totalitarian branch with Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. Still another is the libertine branch. It consists of Sigmund Freud, Margaret Mead and Alfred Kinsey.

The books Dr. Wiker chose to criticize all express an atheistic worldview and a call for an end to the restraints imposed by Judaic-Christian morality. So be forewarned. This author writes from a Christian perspective. If you take offense that the atheist viewpoint is presented in a not so favorable light, you may want to skip this book. To do otherwise makes as much sense as picking up a bible and complaining about all the talk about God.
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Jul 25, 2008 Carrie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: jesus-is-still-alright, i-used-to-be-smart

This book looks at books such as Coming of Age in Samoa and The Kinsey report and shows us how we ended up living the way we do in the 21st century. Very interesting look at philosophy/pseudo-science. Also good if you are interested in history. Once these major works are viewed in chronological order, it is easy to see the impact they've had on the world.

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Apr 25, 2012 George rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who can accept the truth.

Shelves: audiobook-i-own, politics-nonfiction

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 lawyers since the turn of the 20th century.

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Sep 26, 2010 Anna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Saw this on Book TV, and got a copy. Read this review, and agree completely. "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 killed under the bad idea of communism"

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Sep 05, 2010 Nathan rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

For people seeking to grow intellectually, I recommend reading some things with which they don't necesarily agree. About ten pages into this one, I realized how far apart the author and I were on some documents that I have read, studied and written about. I was OK with our disagreement but the more I read the more I realized that the author had some fundamental misunderstandings of these books, their historical contexts and the original authors' intent. He conveniently uses original quotes out o...more

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Dec 22, 2008 Terri rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I don't have the energy to describe the weakness and shallowness of this apparently educated person's arguments. Perhaps later. Sorry, readers. Don't take my word for it. And don't take his - read these books for yourself, so you'll know what you're talking about if you want to express your disapproval of them.

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Jul 06, 2010 Stacy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Really interesting read. Benjamin Wiker knows his stuff and can burrow through all of the mess, find the message, and dispute it with reasonable arguments. One of my favorite passages in the chapter on John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism. "As atheists, they (Mills and Bentham) wanted all the moral benefits of Christianity, except without the Christianity part. They were the kind of self-assured chaps who took the fruits of centuries of Christian moral formation for granted even as they cheerfully...more

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Sep 20, 2012 Kyle rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was not a very good book. It attempts to discuss the ten books that have caused the most deaths and carnage throughout history. Lovely, I know; however, it's pretty easy to guess which books are on the list. "The Prince", "Leviathan", Descartes, "The Communist Manifesto", "Beyond good and Evil" and so on. It links, "Mein Kampf", "Descent of Man", and, "Coming of Age in Samoa" through eugenics, and thus the holocaust, which is pretty shady, if you ask me... well at least for two of those boo...more

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Aug 23, 2010 Christine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010-reads

Mr. 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...more

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Sep 06, 2012 Susan Hanson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ok, I get it, he's a shade sexist, homophobic and hyper Christian, all things I unequivocally am not but still I did find his points of view interesting and occasionally humorous. Is it top rack, nightstand worthy? Of course not but if you are up for a jolly internal debate this will suffice. Take it as that and leave it there. It's not going to alter the world as you see it, if it does perhaps you my love should move back to Suess for a bit longer. It might make you think, it might make you ann...more

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Sep 15, 2012 Susan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: christian, non-fiction, philosophy, politics

Some readers reported disappointment that the author harped on how the books he chose pushed public thought toward godless solutions in public policy and replaced the basis of public ethics in the West with a concern for pragmatic concerns only.

They did not feel he proved that this was a bad idea, just presumed that it was.

I found that he did touch on why he believed this was a bad idea, but only in a limited way, and without discussing other possible alternatives. Now, I agree with his premis...more

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Mar 09, 2009 Sarah rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

On the one hand, I'm glad I read this book so I didn't have to read some of the books described in it. I think the author does a fine job of highlighting some of the more despicable points of the books discussed. I feel like I have a basic understanding of the concepts in each of them. However...the author is biased and picks out the passages to make his point and has an agenda in mind. I was hoping for a more historical perspective, but instead got a religious one. I can understand why the auth...more

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Jun 14, 2013 Alan rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An interesting riff on the tradition of 'Great Books of Western Civ', this book of short essays is also a critique. The story of Western Civ is usually told as a story of Great Thinkers supposedly learning to become more scientific and more humanistic, but this book severely chastises several of those thinkers... on the grounds, ultimately, that they are too scientific (not enough faith) or too humanistic (no place for God). Which is unfortunate, because the argument ends up being circular and n...more

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Jun 18, 2012 Amblingbooks.com marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: history, literary-criticism, available-on-audio

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.

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, tot

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May 18, 2009 Rhonda rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, politics, psychology, theology

Imagine yourself at an Epistemology convention where one man has a pitchfork and continuously walks around poking people in the butt. He follows this with comments such as, "I'll bet you don't doubt your existence any more!" and laughing uproariously. If you can picture such a strange scenario then you have pretty much zeroed in on what Benjamin Wiker does throughout. I found it rather tedious and boring.

On the other hand, I can be candid about his premise: are these ten (actually more) books wh...more Imagine yourself at an Epistemology convention where one man has a pitchfork and continuously walks around poking people in the butt. He follows this with comments such as, "I'll bet you don't doubt your existence any more!" and laughing uproariously. If you can picture such a strange scenario then you have pretty much zeroed in on what Benjamin Wiker does throughout. I found it rather tedious and boring.

On the other hand, I can be candid about his premise: are these ten (actually more) books which screwed up the world? First, although I can hear the groans already, it isn't the books that do anything but people who decide that things in them are true and that the application of this newfound knowledge must be applied in a certain way. Hence I am not sure whether he is suggesting that these books ought not to have been written, in the sense of a moral judgment, or that they have been deleterious to our social well being, more than anything else because they have encouraged atheism. Frankly I think that he wants to do both.

Does this book deliver on its promise to show how thinking derived from these books has created anti-God sentiment in our modern social world? He has most definitely done that. With that said, even though I am a practicing Christian and would rather people believe in God, I think that Wiker misses the point on various occasions. What he fails to understand that these books are a product of their ages, in some cases the genius of their age. I have no doubt that Thomas Hobbes and René Descartes would mop the floor with him. I would argue that the age created the necessity of someone writing these books. It just happened to be these certain people, no doubt by some small measure of their genius. As an exception, his last book, The Feminine Mystique just seems like a lonely ramble through a questionable interpretation of modern life. Call me crazy, but I have often thought that feminism’s only point was to encourage women that they could abase themselves to the very nadir of male behavior in some pathetic effort at equality.

Mankind is extremely inventive and this book provides ample evidence that we have created our own myths which have supplanted God in many ways. I think this is undeniable, although it may be a shock for some. The difficulty comes in that I doubt whether this book will do much convincing: those who can read the books he mentions, should do so and, in all fairness, Wiker encourages all to do so. However I think these books are a product of their age, even if some are highly specious on some points. They were important because of their effect on their generations. More than anything else, read them carefully and wonder at their power in your own mind. God will always be there when you really need him anyway.
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Jan 31, 2009 Rachel rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-started-not-finished

I didn't technically finish this book. I read about 2/3 of it before I decided enough was enough.

First off: if you are Christian, you are more likely to agree. If you aren't, you are more likely to think he is an idiot.

Second: I'd like to address a critique put in one reader's review. He seemed shocked when he realized that the author's viewpoint was Christian, and then revealed that the author is a minister, the reviewers are Christian conservatives, and the publisher is a Christian bookseller...more

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Sep 08, 2008 Nancy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am still trying to repair the damage public (government) schools did to my education. This book is great for doing just that. Dr Wiker lists the books in chronological order not necessarily in order of the worst. He gives you quotes from each authors writings (except Kinsey, the Kinsey Institute wouldn’t let him use direct quotes – wonder why?)
He covers authors and their ideas such as Machiavelli, Descartes, Rousseau (So far my favorite most awful person and on a list of awful people that is...more

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

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