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.

[Jet Jaguar]

Is the Koran listed?

[itsamelman]

[camle]

where's "Protocols of the elders of Zion"? if that isn't an evil publication I don't know what is.

[theDentist]

Neither Bill nor Hillary made ths list, or the "Honorable Mentions". Maybe because they were both works of fiction.

[68skylark]

Great list. Except for the presence of Darwin's books, I agree with the entire list. Good post.

[snowsislander]

Not a bad list, but I would move Marx's Das Kapital up from #6.

[Patrick1]

"My Lies" --Bill Clinton

[BikerNYC]

Harmful books? No. No harmful books. Harmful people.

[Congressman Billybob]

I think the rules require that people have heard of the book, and also the possibility that the book had some negative impact. The Kerry/Edwards book fails on both points.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column: "The Gunfight at Not-OK Corral"

[ClearCase_guy]

A very fine list. I have no quibbles with it at all.

[So Cal Rocket]

[international american]

ROTFLMAO!!

[christabel]

I agree at least with the ones I am familiar with. Also "Silent Spring" should be on the list.

[international american]

" It Takes A Power Mad Marxist"

[Jet Jaguar]

Posting before reading. But, it was not.

[getitright]

what? no "Earth in the Balance"?

[BIGLOOK]

A dishonorable mention to Kerry's American Soldier. Out of print, of course, but not before harming a generation.

[avg_freeper]

just the scores by rank:

1. The Communist Manifesto
Authors: Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels
Publication date: 1848
Score: 74

2. Mein Kampf
Author: Adolf Hitler
Publication date: 1925-26
Score: 41 3. Quotations from Chairman Mao
Author: Mao Zedong
Publication date: 1966
Score: 38

4. The Kinsey Report
Author: Alfred Kinsey
Publication date: 1948
Score: 37

5. Democracy and Education
Author: John Dewey
Publication date: 1916
Score: 36

6. Das Kapital
Author: Karl Marx
Publication date: 1867-1894
Score: 31

7. The Feminine Mystique
Author: Betty Friedan
Publication date: 1963
Score: 30

8. The Course of Positive Philosophy
Author: Auguste Comte
Publication date: 1830-1842
Score: 28

9. Beyond Good and Evil
Author: Freidrich Nietzsche
Publication date: 1886
Score: 28

10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
Author: John Maynard Keynes
Publication date: 1936
Score: 23

Honorable Mention

These books won votes from two or more judges:

The Population Bomb
by Paul Ehrlich
Score: 22

What Is To Be Done
by V.I. Lenin
Score: 20

Authoritarian Personality
by Theodor Adorno
Score: 19

On Liberty
by John Stuart Mill
Score: 18

Beyond Freedom and Dignity
by B.F. Skinner
Score: 18

Reflections on Violence
by Georges Sorel
Score: 18

The Promise of American Life
by Herbert Croly
Score: 17

Origin of the Species
by Charles Darwin
Score: 17

Madness and Civilization
by Michel Foucault
Score: 12

Soviet Communism: A New Civilization
by Sidney and Beatrice Webb
Score: 12

Coming of Age in Samoa
by Margaret Mead
Score: 11

Unsafe at Any Speed
by Ralph Nader
Score: 11

Second Sex
by Simone de Beauvoir
Score: 10

Prison Notebooks
by Antonio Gramsci
Score: 10

Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson
Score: 9

Wretched of the Earth
by Frantz Fanon
Score: 9

Introduction to Psychoanalysis
by Sigmund Freud
Score: 9

The Greening of America
by Charles Reich
Score: 9

The Limits to Growth
by Club of Rome
Score: 4

Descent of Man
by Charles Darwin
Score: 2

[wizardoz]

I would add Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.