Should we read books of right and left extremes and of religious fanatics ?

Yes, but we should be cautious, to read only those from one group, because they will influence our thinking, without that we get aware of it.

But if we want to understand, how fanatics think, we must read their books.

Best is to leap from one extreme to the other:

• for instance read Marx, then read something from Mussolini, Franco etc.
• read Lenin, Stalin, Mao and read parallel Hitler, Himmler etc.

And in between one should read a lot of the writings of the humanists like Albert Schweitzer, Gandhi etc.

It is almost not bearable, to read all the nonsense and the many lies, which were written by dictators and other  fanatics.

• Ideas never die and they can develop their good or bad influences onto societies and therefore we should know them and carefully observe, how they influence our present societies.

This year  the book of Hitler „Mein Kampf“, with scientifically based comments has been published.

• At the time of the Nazi-Terrorists in Germany, it was distributed in million of copies in Germany. After World War II, it was forbidden in Germany, but one could easily get and nowadays one can download it from   the Internet.

• To forbid,  to read a book, is nonsense, because that does not make people immune against its ideas. It is better, if the people read the book and understand,  if it tells truths or lies.

Of course, it is hard to read the book of Hitler, because he is a poor writer, not fascinating to read it at all.

But this book shows the narrowness of the mental attitude of Hitler and dictators and fanatics always have a narrow mental attitude.

• the main drawback is, that it is too long and too expensive. Hopefully somebody will write a much shorter version, focusing on the most important topics only.

And that explains, why they have a strong influence  onto many other people, who have also a narrow mental attitude.

• to defeat those demagogic populists, the best method is, to teach children,  already at school,  global topics, so that they develop a broad mental attitude.

The commentary to the book from Hitler helps, to realize, how many pure lies Hitler has written in his book.

• From his personal actions, we see, that he  personally acts against his  own teachings, which by the way, is common to all dictators.

Hitler titled himself, to be the greatest general of all times; history has proved, that the was the smallest one.