Who Needs The Pulitzer?

Human Events, a conservative magazine, has listed the top 10 most harmful books of the 19^th and 20^th centuries. I have to be honest, I’m a little relieved. I’ve been laying awake for several nights now worried what would happen if some poor unsuspecting child got his hands on a copy of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. That could lead to more environmental laws getting passed within the next twenty years!

Here’s the thing: I actually agree that many of the books on this list probably are not promoting systems or ways of thinking that are good in the long term or even viable, however I still think there’s a difference between thought that isn’t productive and thought that is harmful. And I think I am not alone in finding it funny that books about seat belt laws, the women’s lib movement and basic behavioral psychology are deemed harmful, but the publications of Playboy and Penthouse are given a free ride.

But is it just me or are these reviewers slipping a little bit? Where’s Mary Pipher’s Reviving Ophelia? Or the perennial favorite The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? Harry Potter didn’t even make it on the list! Come on, guys! These books aren’t going to pan themselves.

At least we both agree that Hitler was crazy, although I’m not sure that it’s not a bad idea to read his writing. If one of the best ways to understand the sickness of a Schizophrenic is to spend time with him, then I would think one of the best ways to learn about what made a man want to murder 6 million people would be to read his manifesto.

For the curious, here is the full list. For the list direct from the horse’s mouth along with reasons as to why these little Molotov cocktails of the First Amendment are worthy of being included in this august list, check out the magazine’s website here. Make sure to check out their selection of books by Dick Morris, Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity while you’re there.

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

1. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels
2. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
3. Quotations From Chairman Mao by Mao Zedong
4. The Kinsey Report by Alfred Kinsey
5. Democracy and Education by John Dewey
6. Das Kapital by Karl Marx (two-time winner!)
7. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
8. The Course of Positive Psychology By Auguste Comte
9. Beyond Good and Evil by Freidrich Nietzsche
10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes

And just to make that no one’s feelings get hurt, here’s the list of honorable mentions, listed in order of harm:

• The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich
• What Is To Be Done by V.I. Lenin
• Authoritarian Personality by Theodor Adorno
• On Liberty by John Stewart Mill
• Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B.F. Skinner
• Reflections on Violence by Georges Sorel
• The Promise of American Life by Herbert Croly
• The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin
• Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault
• Soviet Communism: A New Civilization by Sidney and Beatrice Webb
• Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead
• Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader
• Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
• Prison Notebooks Antonio Gramsci
• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
• Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
• Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
• The Greening of America by Charles Reich
• The Limits to Growth by Club of Rome
• Descent of Man by Charles Darwin