by Ken Roebuck

Created on: December 27, 2008

The "10 Books that Screwed Up the World And 5 Others that Didn't Help" by Dr. Benjamin Wiker is a thought-provoking romp for the brain for those intrepid souls with a penchant for philosophy or the history of western civilization particularly the malevolent side of that history. Wiker opens his preamble of malice with the "preliminary screw ups" which lay the foundation for all the latter really big screw-ups. The foundational books include "The Prince" by Italian political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), "Discourse on the Method" by French philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1611), "Leviathan" by English political philosopher Thomas Hobbs (1588-1679), and "Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality Among Men" by Swiss political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Each of these devious books in their own way attempt to redefine traditional morality based on belief in a transcendent God.

Having set the stage Wiker proceeds with "the10 big screw-ups" in the following order: "The Communist Manifesto" by German political economist and revolutionary Karl Marx (1818-83) and German social scientist Friedrich Engels (1820-95); "Utilitarianism" by British philosopher and liberal thinker John Stuart Mill (1806-73); "The Descent of Man" by English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-82); "Beyond Good and Evil" by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1841-1900); "The State and Revolution" by Russian revolutionary Vladimir I. Lenin (1870-1924); "The Pivot of Civilization" by American reproductive activist and negative eugenics advocate Margaret Sanger (1879-1966); "Mein Kampf" by Austrian-born politician and founder of the National Socialist Workers Party Adolf Hitler (1881-1945); "Future of an Illusion" by Austrian-Jewish psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939); "Coming of Age in Samoa" by American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-73); and "Sexual Behavior of the Human Male" by American biologist Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956). Wiker caps his list with a "dishonorable mention" "The Feminine Mystic" by American feminist Betty Freidan (1921-2006). From these fifteen infamous books Dr. Wiker makes a compelling case for how godless atheistic philosophies and thought have been maliciously used by those in power to promulgate massive human suffering in the 20th century citing Soviet and Maoist communism and Nazi racism as prime examples.

Appropriately, Wiker initiates his list with Machiavelli's "The Prince" whose insidious malevolence pervades

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