Human Events Online, which bills itself as “The National Conservative Weekly,” has just published a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. I really hate to give them the traffic, but you really have to see this list to believe it. It was compiled by “a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders,” which explains a lot. Marx, Lenin, Hitler, and Chairman Mao are on the list, of course, along with those evildoers Alfred Kinsey, Betty Friedan, and John Maynard Keynes.
What I find truly ironic is that each of these so-called harmful books contains a color picture of the book’s cover with a link to Amazon.com, with the Human Events affiliate code at the end. The road from hypocrite to whore is paved with affiliate links, apparently.
The authors were kind enough to include 20 additional books that earned two or more votes from this distinguished panel. Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species (with its title incorrectly transcribed) and On Liberty by John Stuart Mill are on the longer list. And no, My Pet Goat didn’t make the list at all.
Update: Digby has my favorite take on this bullshit list:
Speaking of books, are any of you libertarians out there a little bit discomfited by the fact that “On Liberty” by JS Mill got an honorable mention in the 10 worst books list by HumanEvents magazine? I mean, “Mein Kampf” and “Das Kapital” aren’t big surprises. I’m not shocked by “The Feminine Mystique” or even the inclusion of John Maynard Keynes (although you have to love this commentary: “FDR adopted the idea as U.S. policy, and the U.S. government now has a $2.6-trillion annual budget and an $8-trillion dollar debt.” Haha.)
But “On Liberty”? What, he wasn’t sufficiently agitated about stem cell research? The capital gains tax?
Jesus, I now have not one single intellectual connection to the right. Not one. They are aliens from another planet.”
Oh. and mm notes in the comments that I’m just pissed off because Windows XP Inside Out wasn’t on the list. True. We try our best to do The Communist Manifesto with screenshots, and this is our reward. Sheesh!
Update 2: Cheers and Jeers at Daily Kos has a nice alternate take, which includes Goodnight Moon, Webster’s Dictionary, Roget’s Thesaurus, and Yertle the Turtle should have made the list instead.
Ed Bott 
Oh, you’re just chagrined because Windows XP Inside Out Deluxe Second Edition didn’t make the cut. (by their thinking, anyone who masters Bill Gates’ witchcraft must be a liberal satanist).
I think you came in 23rd.
Digby’s observation is true to my experience when I talk to my brother in Oregon, I audibly gasp at his nutty words. By the way, J.S. Mill makes their list because he broadly promoted Women’s Rights long before it was chic in the US after WWI.
They missed a few:
Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”
David Halberstam’s “The Best and the Brightest”
Alexis De Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America”
but pretty much any book that encourages looking at things from more than a single point-of-view will make the list. i would guess that more people read “The Jungle” than “Beyond Good and Evil”, and so they may have missed the boat in their list by not distinguishing between “evilness of ideas” versus “reach of the message”. Hmmm, maybe “The Painted Bird” belongs on the list too.