The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism

Dr. Paul Kengor gave a lecture on his book “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism” on July 31, 2018, at The Institute of World Politics.

About the Lecture:

Communism has wrecked national economies, enslaved whole peoples, and killed more than a hundred million men and women. What’s not to like?

Too many young Americans are supporting communism. Millennials prefer socialism to capitalism, and 25 percent have a positive view of Lenin. One in four Americans believe that George W. Bush killed more people than Josef Stalin. And 69 percent of Millennials would vote for a socialist for president.

They ought to know better. Communism is the most dangerous idea in world history, producing dire poverty, repression, and carnage wherever it has been tried. And no wonder—because communism flatly denies morality, human nature, and basic facts. But it’s always going to be different this time.

In this lecture, renowned scholar and bestselling author Paul Kengor will highlight points from his recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism, exposing the blood-drenched history—and dangerously pervasive influence—of the world’s worst ideology.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College, a four-year, private Christian liberal arts college located in Grove City, Pennsylvania. He is executive director of the Center for Vision & Values, a Grove City College think-tank and policy center. He is also a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University. He has been quoted or published in most major publications from across the ideological spectrum: New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, Washington Post, New York Post, National Review, Chronicle of Higher Education, San Francisco Chronicle, American Spectator, New York Newsday, Political Science Quarterly, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Washington Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Boston Herald, Roll Call, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Philadelphia Inquirer, Christianity Today, World magazine, National Catholic Reporter, National Catholic Register, Our Sunday Visitor, the Jewish Press, Jewish World Review, International Herald Tribune, Manchester Union Leader, and others.

Kengor has authored several bestsellers. More recently, his 2012 profile of Frank Marshall Davis, mentor to Barack Obama, titled, The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, the Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor (Simon & Schuster, Threshold/Mercury Ink), debuted at #9 on the New York Times bestseller list and hit #1 in non-fiction at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com. Based on declassified FBI files and Soviet and Communist Party USA archives, the book garnered a significant amount of public attention.

In 2010, Kengor published Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century (ISI Books). Based on extensive Soviet archival research, particularly the Soviet Comintern Archives on Communist Party USA, the book examines the exploitation of American liberals by communists beginning in the early 20th century.

Kengor’s best-known work is God and Ronald Reagan(HarperCollins, 2004), which made bestseller lists for The New York Times (extended list), Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Christian Retailing, among others; the book reached #2 on Amazon’s non-fiction list. He is author of God and George W. Bush (HarperCollins, 2004), which reached #5 on Amazon’s non-fiction list and made The New York Times’ extended bestseller list. He is co-editor with Peter Schweizer of Assessing the Reagan Presidency (Rowman-Littlefield, 2005). He has also written chapters or essays in books published by Oxford University Press, Columbia University Press, Palgrave-Macmillan, Lexington, and many others.

Kengor is a frequent contributor to MSNBC, C-SPAN, NPR, PCN-TV, and Fox News Channel. He has appeared on many TV shows, including “Hannity & Colmes,” “The O’Reilly Factor,” “Tony Snow Live,” “Fox & Friends,” the 700 Club, and “Scarborough Country.” He has done hundreds of radio-talk shows, including the shows of Sean Hannity, Diane Rehm (NPR-WDC), Michael Reagan, Warren Olney (NPR-LA), Glenn Beck, Janet Parshall’s America, Truths that Transform with D. James Kennedy, Dennis Praeger, Michael Medved, G. Gordon Liddy, Linda Chavez, Kresta in the Afternoon, Jim Quinn, Stand to Reason with Greg Koukl, and Laura Ingraham.