The Politically Incorrect Guide To Communism: The Killingest Idea Ever by Paul Kengor is one of the latest in a string of PIG volumes touching on hot button issues, including hunting, religion, Western Civilization, and American history.
This nonfiction book examines communism and its roots. Kengor discusses the history, philosophy, leadership, and activities of communism and how Western civilization has risen up to battle this political ideology.
In the first two chapters, the author breaks down how communism has infiltrated popular culture and has had its history rewritten by so-called progressives who are drawn to the tyrannical ideology.
In the next section, Kengor discusses far-left thought leader Karl Marx and how he came to write the founding document, The Communist Manifesto. It talks about his influences and how he came to embrace the idea that he was entitled to have his every need covered by a big government. There is a stunning chapter on Marx’s life, illuminating Marx’s many flaws, including how he was a bum who refused to work, mooching off his friends and family, leading to a life of abject poverty.
From here, Kengor takes us on a journey of how communism came to infect Russia, Eastern Europe, Pan-Asia, and later South America.
The section on communism in Cuba is particularly powerful. With millennials wearing the face of Che Guevara on their shirts, this chapter offers a sobering look into the brutal man who would become, quite literally, the face of far-left politics.
Paul Kengor knows the history and the topic. He is a political science professor at Groves City College, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, and the director of the Center for Visions and Values. He has written several other books on history, including The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism.
The Politically Incorrect Guide To Communism is brutally honest. While it is critical of communist ideology, it is not a hatchet job. Kengor does an excellent job of citing historical sources on both sides of the aisle to break down his analysis. It is a timely look at the history of far-left politics and how they affect our world to this day.