Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries

Human Events Online ^ | May 31, 2005 | Human Events

[hinterlander]

HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders to help us compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Each panelist nominated a number of titles and then voted on a ballot including all books nominated. A title received a score of 10 points for being listed No. 1 by one of our panelists, 9 points for being listed No. 2, etc. Appropriately, The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, earned the highest aggregate score and the No. 1 listing.

[inquest]

A good list. I agree that every book on this list was harmful.

Even Mill's On Liberty? I'm curious what was considered objectionable about it.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Silent Spring should've made the top ten.

[Protagoras]

I'd have moved Keynes up a couple of notches on the list, but then I've also been blasted by Freepers who think Keynes was a good economist.

Lots of bright people posit theories which turn out to be incorrect. I don't know that he was a great economist, but he was no dummy.

[Swiss]

I would add Thorstein Veblen's "The Theory of the Leisure Class" which was very influancial at the end of the 19th Century.

[SittinYonder]

He was right once.

[ConservativeMan55]

Gross.

[newheart]

"All this hatred for a biological theory"

I don't even know how I could hate a theory. I can disagree with it, but I don't hate it. I do, however, hate the kinds of social movements that have been built upon its naturalist/materialist base. Communism, Nazism, Eugenics.

Surely you have heard, few self-respecting biologists would call evolution a 'theory'. Only those who disagree with it would call it a theory any more.

[Right Wing Professor]

Oh, I didn't know we were going to use the "hate" lable to broad brush anyone who disagrees with that theory...we jumped that line pretty early today.

Labelling it the most harmful book of the last two centuries doesn't mean you hate it? What term would you prefer? 'Vague disdain'?

[RKV]

My perception is that while Darwin's theories have their problems, there is at least some truth to the idea of natural selection. Otherwise every animal breeder in history was a whack job. As to a literal interpretation of Genesis - well, it doesn't look to me like God created the earth in 7 24-hour days.

[Protagoras]

Books are good. Even bad books are good.

Some make excellent tinder for starting campfires. :^}

[music is math]

Good article. Here's a similar list of equally craptacular shite from various retards.

[Protagoras]

He was right once.

Which time?

[SkyPilot]

Disagreement = Hate in some circles.

Amen.

[Right Wing Professor]

Surely you have heard, few self-respecting biologists would call evolution a 'theory'.

I myself have a Ph.D. in biophysics. I work with scores of biologists. All of us call it a theory. Among working biological scientists, only a tiny minority of kooks have a problem with evolution, and even those kooks hardly ahve any problem calling it a theory.

[xJones]

Kudo to you, for not only reading all the book, but also for debating and berating the class communist.:)

[Pest]

I would put William James' "Pragmatism" on there.

[oh8eleven]

I dunno about Mein Kampf ... however, it does appear to be the blueprint for what Hitler actually ended up doing.
I agree. The book wasn't harmful and should have been used to stop WWII from even starting.
No one having the b*lls to stop Hitler in the 30s is what was "harmful."

[Doctor Stochastic]

But I always thought of J.S. Mill as being one of the primary spokesmen for classical liberalism ...

He was. That's why the Conservatives at Human Events don't like him.

[ChadGore]

Communist Manifesto.

[christabel]

When someone resorts to calling those who disagree with him "kooks" that is strong evidence that his argument is weak.

If they really are kooks just point out the fallacy of their agruments.