Amongst the millions of titles that have been published over the centuries are books so notorious, so infamous, that they belong in a class of their own.
Of course, hundreds of thousands of titles have achieved a modicum of notoriety. Such titles have thumbed their noses at prevailing sexual mores, have argued against the general political consensus, have revealed unflattering truths about the human condition. Over the centuries, many such books have been (and continue to be) banned.
But beyond those books which titillate, beyond those books which upset political applecarts, beyond those books which reflect an image of ourselves that we would rather avoid, are a handful of books whose influence has been truly malign. Books whose adherents have pillaged and raped and tortured and murdered in allegiance to some purported "revealed truth."
We're not talking about the world's major religious texts, though these texts have much to account for. No, the titles we're talking about are much more ... specific.
From roughly 1480-1700, it is estimated that some 40,000-60,000 women were put to death as witches in Europe and North America. Many factors contributed to this violence against women, not least popular superstition and the rabid intolerance of competing religious camps during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation:
Scholars continue to debate, though, about the extent to which this violence was instigated by the publication, in 1486, of Malleus Maleficarum. Penned (supposedly) by two Dominican priests, Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, The Witches' Hammer asserts the reality of witchcraft, describes known forms of witchcraft, and suggests ways to confront and combat witches. The book's detractors argue that [t]housands of people (primarily women) were judicially murdered as a result of the procedures described in this book, for no [other] reason than a strange birthmark, living alone, mental illness, cultivation of medicinal herbs, or simply because they were falsely accused (often for financial gain by the accuser):
This accusation is true, and it is the primary reason why this title is considered among the most notorious books ever published. It has been (and continues to be) translated into numerous languages:
However, there is much about the book that is little more than myth and legend. Popular belief notwithstanding, Malleus Maleficarum was never approved for official use by the Inquisition. In fact, the Inquisition had strongly cautioned members not to believe everything the Malleus said, even when it presented apparently firm evidence. It was civil courts that made the reputation of The Witches' Hammer. Small consolation to the tens of thousands of women that were put to death....
Women have always been convenient scapegoats. So have Jews. And it is Jews who are the focus of our next two notorious books.
Antisemitism has a long and ugly history. The publication of a work like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion should not, therefore, come as much of a surprise. What does surprise is how many people continue to believe this title's purported revelations of a Jewish conspiracy to achieve world domination, decades after the The Times (London) ran a series of articles proving that the work was an utter fabrication:
Adherents of this title's "revealed truth" argue, of course, that any and all attempts to disprove the work are in fact evidence of the very conspiracy it alleges.
First privately published in Russia in 1897, The Protocols are supposedly the minutes of a secret meeting of Jewish leaders held near the close of the 19th century. In fact, the book is largely a pastiche of an 1864 French satire and a chapter from an 1868 German novel. Research in the only-recently-opened Russian archives suggests that the fabrication may be the work of Mathieu Golovinski, a Russian exile living in France at the time of the work's first publication.
The work has been (and continues to be) published in an enormous number of languages...
despite the steady flow of books that have consistently detailed its fabrication (such fabrication has even been the concern of a graphic novel):
The Protocols' noxious brew has been used to justify everything from Russian pogroms to Nazi death camps, and its influence today remains as strong as it ever was. A notorious book if ever there was one....
The influence of the previous title is readily seen in the last of our notorious books, Adolph Hilter's Mein Kampf:
Ostensibly an autobiography, Mein Kampf is equally a chilling exposition of the ideological development of one of history's greatest tyrants. Originally published as two volumes (1925-1926), by the time Hitler gained the Chancellorship of Gemany in 1933 the book had already sold over a quarter-million copies. During Hitler's years in power, the book was given free to every newlywed couple and every soldier fighting at the front.
The book's publishing history may be somewhat complicated, but its malign influence is not....
The book remains in print to this day, in a multiplicity of languages. Perhaps one reason for this is that much of the book's advice appears to still be heeded by politicians:
...in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes....
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