Ten Most harmful books of the 19th and 20th century

I would like to preface this post with a quick statement. I in no way shape or form agree with this list... in my personal opinion this is an attempt by an obviously conservative group to remove books that are against their ideology. That being said I'm sure that if i were as conservative as I am liberal id love this list.... I do not claim that this website is representative of the entire conservative movement only that it is a conservative website... enjoy the list... and then check out the notable mentions... Darwin makes an appearance...

www.humanevents.com...
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.

and here is a snippet of the notable mentions

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

The Origin of Species
by Charles Darwin
Score: 17

It is worth mentioning that there are always radical elements within political parties regardless of whether they are Liberal or Conservative... it is this radicalism that must be guarded against... while I am a Liberal it is important that our country take a balanced approach not only to our government but to our lives as well.

mod edit to fix quote tags

[edit on 7-8-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

I'm happy to report I have read half of those on your list. Not too good, but not too bad, either. Books are our windows on the world. I hope eery child learns to read, to read books and to respect books. Even books you do not agree with.





[edit on 8/7/2006 by donwhite]

Wow, that was almost stereotypical.
That is to sya, those are books I would stereotypically say conservatives would dislike.

Honestly I've never read any of those books, and I've only heard of four of them.

Even though I don't consider books to be harmful, I do agree with that list on on "mein kompf".

Well isnt it funny that these conservative scholars forget to put in the list. The Secret Doctrine by Helana Petrovna Balvatsky. The book the influced the Nazi's view on history and the Aryan master race, which led to the holocaust.
Yet Darwins Origins Of Species is on the list......Shows what their agenda is.

[edit on 083131p://upMonday by wang]

I guess I'm more of a libertarian than I thought.

Books are very important to me and I don't understand how those books could be harmful. Even if you disagree with the authors, at least you see how others think and process information.
Having a list of harmful books seems to indicate being on the road toward book banning.

I can make up my own mind as to what is harmful to me and mine. Thanks very much.

Wow, they put the book that SAVED AMERICA on that list! The book FDR used to save the country from the Great Depression that was caused by Republicans, is on that list! Like wow, can tell how ignorant these people are. What's next, The Guide Of CPR because someone used it to save, uh, Democrat Bill CLinton?

But my Favorite? The Course of Positive Philosophy. Something that is about Humans advancing through science and not being sheep. Again, shows how ignorant these people are. These are the kind of people who have loved 1830's Deep South where the blacks were slaves, the women were slaves(The Feminine Mystique made the list) and only Rich White Chritian Men were allowed to vote or have money.

In other words, your typical republicans.

Wow, they put the book that SAVED AMERICA on that list! The book FDR used to save the country from the Great Depression

REPLY: FDR's anti-capitalist interference actually prolonged the Depression; and all of his Marxist social(ist) programs, that we are still using to this day, have done more harm than you can imagine to America.

".... that was caused by Republicans...."

REPLY: I'd love to hear an explaination of that.

".... to remove books that are against their ideology.

REPLY: Nothing on the link mentioned anything about getting rid of the books, although similar books are used in colleges to teach our youth failed economic and govermental principles, which is not a good thing.

[edit on 7-8-2006 by zappafan1]

Zappa, who was the President when the GP happened? A republican.
Who was President as the GP got even worse? A republican.
WHo became President and then got America out of the GP? A Democrat, who used a book on that list to get us out.

The book list is typical machinations from the conservatives. Did they not forget about The Turner Diaries?

Here, I agree with DTOM. I love to read. I don't need anyone telling me what is dangerous or not when afforded to reading.

But what especially makes me laugh about this list is the fact that they put The Kinsey Report on there. Are they so afraid about sex that they would label this book as dangerous? It shows me that the people who put this book on the list lack the curiosity or scientific knowledge when discovering the initimacies of people. In fact, this listing tells me that they are threatened by their own sexuality.

After all, this list is just another attempt to harp on the freedom of speech as the GOP has been doing since the present administration began.





[edit on 7-8-2006 by ceci2006]

I always told my children that a person that doesn't read is wasting their most powerful tool. . . their mind.

I am an avid reader and the more the controversy about a book the more I want to read.

I have the right to make my own decisions and express my own personal opinions.

Originally posted by Dudleyville
Zappa, who was the President when the GP happened? A republican.
Who was President as the GP got even worse? A republican.
WHo became President and then got America out of the GP? A Democrat, who used a book on that list to get us out.

REPLY: About the only thing FDR did was lift the spirit of the American people.

I just finished reading my second book about the subject, the latest of which is mentioned below.

Historian Jim Powell of the Cato Institute, with a new book arguing that Roosevelt's policies actually prolonged the Depression. "FDR's Folly" is endorsed by two Nobel Prize economists, Milton Friedman and James Buchanan, and cites a plethora of economic studies.

I find it rather amusing that the title of the thread is "Ten Most harmful books of the 19th and 20th century," yet the focus of the initial post is not on the top ten, but the "honorable mentions." The initial post in fact only references one of the "top ten," The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels... What are the other nine?

How easily distracted we are...

And I'm still trying to figure out why this is in PTS U.S. Politics... Wouldn't ATS Education & Media be more appropriate?

[edit on 8/8/2006 by Mirthful Me]

...the title of the thread is "Ten Most harmful books of the 19th and 20th century," yet the focus of the initial post is not on the top ten, but the "honorable mentions." ...only references one of the "top ten"... What are the other nine?

Finally, someone mentions that.
I did'nt want to say anything, 'cause I thought maybe it was a mistake, and they'd edit it, but they have'nt...

And I'm still tryinbg to figure out why this is in PTS U.S. Politics... Wouldn't ATS Education & Media be more appropriate?

I'm not totally sure, but I think this was originally there, atleast I'm pretty sure that's where it said when I initially read it.

[edit on 8/8/2006 by iori_komei]

ask and ye shall receive... or you could click on link... either or... not ment to be rude...

2. Mein Kampf


Author: Adolf Hitler
Publication date: 1925-26
Score: 41
Summary: Mein Kampf (My Struggle) was initially published in two parts in 1925 and 1926 after Hitler was imprisoned for leading Nazi Brown Shirts in the so-called “Beer Hall Putsch” that tried to overthrow the Bavarian government. Here Hitler explained his racist, anti-Semitic vision for Germany, laying out a Nazi program pointing directly to World War II and the Holocaust. He envisioned the mass murder of Jews, and a war against France to precede a war against Russia to carve out “lebensraum” (“living room”) for Germans in Eastern Europe. The book was originally ignored. But not after Hitler rose to power. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, there were 10 million copies in circulation by 1945.


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3. Quotations from Chairman Mao


Author: Mao Zedong
Publication date: 1966
Score: 38
Summary: Mao, who died in 1976, was the leader of the Red Army in the fight for control of China against the anti-Communist forces of Chiang Kai-shek before, during and after World War II. Victorious, in 1949, he founded the People’s Republic of China, enslaving the world’s most populous nation in communism. In 1966, he published Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, otherwise known as The Little Red Book, as a tool in the “Cultural Revolution” he launched to push the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese society back in his ideological direction. Aided by compulsory distribution in China, billions were printed. Western leftists were enamored with its Marxist anti-Americanism. “It is the task of the people of the whole world to put an end to the aggression and oppression perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism,” wrote Mao.


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4. The Kinsey Report


Author: Alfred Kinsey
Publication date: 1948
Score: 37
Summary: Alfred Kinsey was a zoologist at Indiana University who, in 1948, published a study called Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, commonly known as The Kinsey Report. Five years later, he published Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. The reports were designed to give a scientific gloss to the normalization of promiscuity and deviancy. “Kinsey’s initial report, released in 1948 . . . stunned the nation by saying that American men were so sexually wild that 95% of them could be accused of some kind of sexual offense under 1940s laws,” the Washington Times reported last year when a movie on Kinsey was released. “The report included reports of sexual activity by boys--even babies--and said that 37% of adult males had had at least one homosexual experience. . . . The 1953 book also included reports of sexual activity involving girls younger than age 4, and suggested that sex between adults and children could be beneficial.”


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5. Democracy and Education


Author: John Dewey
Publication date: 1916
Score: 36
Summary: John Dewey, who lived from 1859 until 1952, was a “progressive” philosopher and leading advocate for secular humanism in American life, who taught at the University of Chicago and at Columbia. He signed the Humanist Manifesto and rejected traditional religion and moral absolutes. In Democracy and Education, in pompous and opaque prose, he disparaged schooling that focused on traditional character development and endowing children with hard knowledge, and encouraged the teaching of thinking “skills” instead. His views had great influence on the direction of American education--particularly in public schools--and helped nurture the Clinton generation.

"Mein Kampf": No-one paid attention to this book when first released. Had they done so they would have found out what Hitler's plans were for Europe. What a shame.

"Quotations from Chairman Mao": Same here, only from a Communist nutball.

"The Kinsey Report": One of the persons who had much influence towards altering the morality of Americans in general, and women in particular. Much of his work has been found to be wanting and not reproduceable; possibly a pervert because of specific use of children in his "work".

"John Dewey": The single person most responsible for ruining generations of our children with his grand experiment of "education." Unfortunately, every public school still expouses his goals and ideals. Remember.... the word "Progressive" was a catch phrase for Marxism and Communism during his lifetime, and is now in use once again.

Originally posted by Dudleyville
Zappa, who was the President when the GP happened? A republican.
Who was President as the GP got even worse? A republican.
WHo became President and then got America out of the GP? A Democrat, who used a book on that list to get us out.

The Great Depression hit a peak in 1933, when FDR was president(banking acts[glass-steagal]). Though it is a bit arbitrary to debate party politics of the 1930's. Much has changed since then. The real question to ask is: what war ended the Great Depression and drove in the American Industrial Revolution?

How ridiculous. Books are not dangerous. Even books that are full of it aren't dangerous.
Books contain ideas which the reader should consider and challenge. Do conservatives believe that people should not understand and challenge the Communist Manifesto?
If I may quote Ronald Reagan: "A Communist is someone who reads Karl Marx. An Anti-Communist is someone who understands Karl Marx."


And by the by, Darwin, Dewey and Mill were in good part correct. Nietzsche addressed the axiomatic but was too narrowminded about how it ought to be responded to.

I would love to read their indictment of Mill. I imagine it has something to do with his assertion that values cannot be enforced, but I saw the book as fairly conservative to libertarian in many respects.

I can't help noticing that The Prince didn't make the list. Telling.