Most harmful books of the 19th & 20th centuries

San Antonio Express-News ^ | 01/14/2010 | Source: www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=7591

[Fiji Hill]

Don't forget The Authoritarian Personality by Theodor Adorno (New York: Harper, 1950).

[Sherman Logan]

I would contend that Keynes’ Economic Consequences of the Peace was far more destructive than his General Theory.

It convinced most of the world’s political class that the Versailles Treaty was not worth defending.

So nobody defended it, which permitted Hitler’s rise and WWII.

His General Theory, OTOH, was written for economists and hardly anybody actually read it, although admittedly the ideas taken from it were destructive.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

My daughter’s first-grade cirriculum talked about “Silent Spring”. I was shocked... I didn’t realize we were going to be de-programming our kids this soon.

You’re right, it did a ton of damage. The book is a grotesque lie and it’s responsible for more deaths than I could ever count.

[stormer]

Books don’t kill people. People that read books kill people.

[DManA]

Hitler’s book could have been constructive if western leaders had read it, believed he meant what he wrote, and acted on that information. Adolph spelled it all out in advance.

[Techster]

Dr. Spock’s book, whatever its title, on raising children.

[Sopater]

The Qu’ran

[Future Snake Eater]

That book blew. I did NOT see what was so influential.

[Harold Shea]

Think I`d also include some of that Myra Angelou twaddle
as well.Turned brains to mush

That Carlos Castenada stuff,wonder whatever happened
to that...ahh..the `70s..good ridance

[Responsibility2nd]

I’m not sure I’d include Mein Kampf because it is basically unreadable. At least, it defeated me...twice!

_________________________

Maybe so..... But it DID lead to Hitler murdering 6-10 million people.

So yeah. It was harmfull. To say the least

[Mears]

No one ever knows what Maya Angelou is saying,or trying to say.

[Fiji Hill]

Here are some additions to the liberal list of harmful books:

1. Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television published by Counterattack: The Newsletter of Facts to Combat Communism (New York: American Business Consultants, 1950)

2. Witness by Whittaker Chambers (New York: Random House, 1952)

3. The Discovery of Freedom: Man's Struggle Against Authority by Rose Wilder Lane (New York: Day, 1943)

4. Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948)

5. Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt (New York: Harper, 1946)

6. The Struggle for the World by James Burnham (New York: Day, 1947)

7. Crowd Culture: An Examination of the American Way of Life by Bernard Iddings Bell (New York: Harper, 1952)

8. The Red Decade by Eugene Lyons (New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1941)

9. Reflections on the Failure of Socialism by Max Eastman (New York: Devin Adair, 1955)

10. The Conservative Mind: from Burke to Santayana by Russell Kirk (Chicago: Regnery, 1953)

[LouAvul]

Just imagine if oil wasn't found in the Middle East

I've concluded that civilization will always have substantial threats to our wellbeing. I thought that when the soviet union imploded we were in for smooth sailing, but obviously not.

If it weren't the ragheads, it would be something else.

[MarkL]

I’m not sure I’d include Mein Kampf because it is basically unreadable. At least, it defeated me...twice!

So is "Das Kapital." I took a Marxist Economics class in college (it turned me hard core, pro-capitalist when I was leaning a bit to the left), and never was able to get through that book. I read a bunch of things that people wrote about Marx and his "theories," but never actually got through anything Marx himself wrote. It was awful, but I managed to BS my way through that class, and got a B+!

Mark

[Defiant]

Surprised I haven’t seen anyone mention that stupid baby book by Dr. Spock. He ruined a generation that is currently ruining us.

[dmz]

Wanda: You’re a big stupid ape.
Otto: Do big stupid apes read Nietzsche?
Wanda: Yes they do Otto, they just don’t understand it.

<><><><><><><

LOL.

Otto is not alone. Of course, the numbers discussing Nietzsche far, far outnumber those who have actually read his work.

[Responsibility2nd]

Techster posited that in #46

[Fiji Hill]

Summerhill by Alexander S. Neill (New York: Hart, 1960) ought to be a candidate for the list. Its author touts the "progressive" school in England which he founded and which featured no discipline or academic standards. At Summerhill, which is still in business, pupils can play all day if they want to.

Although Max Rafferty, California's Superintendent of Public Instruction in the 1960's was quoted as saying that he would send his kids to a whorehouse before he would send them to Summerhill, the book was wildly popular among the education establishment from the sixties onward. It may still be required reading in many teaching credential programs.

[mel]

later

[Seruzawa]

I’m not sure how many of Hitler’s followers actually read the book.