Books: "Confronting Evil" By Bill O'Reilly

 

Confronting Evil: Assessing the Worst of the Worst

By Bill O'Reilly and Josh Hammer

St. Martin's Press; 304 pages, including one 16-page, 4-color photo insert; $32.00; available today, September 9th

Iconic television news journalist and radio host Bill O'Reilly hosts "No Spin News," weeknights at 8 PM and 11 p.m. on The First TV, a new media network on many digital platforms, including Roku, Amazon Fire, and Apple TV. He also hosts "The O'Reilly Update" on the radio, and that can he heard on the Pandora app and over 300 stations across the country, including WABC here in New York. He has been a broadcaster for over 49 years, and he has won three Emmys and numerous other journalism accolades. Before his long tenure with Fox News when he anchored the top-ranked "The O'Reilly Factor," he was a national correspondent for CBS News and ABC News, as well as a reporter-anchor for WCBS-TV here in New York.

O'Reilly is also a prominent author, with 19 number-one ranked non-fiction books. That includes his renowned Killing series, which he has written with Martin Dugard is the most popular series of narrative histories in the world, with 19 million copies in print and a remarkable run of #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestsellers. There have been 13 books in the Killing series to this point. Recent releases include Killing the Killers (please click here for our review), which focused on the War on Terror and became a #1 New York Times and national bestseller, and Killing the Legends, on Elvis Presley, John Lennon, and Muhammad Ali. (click here for our review). Last fall, O'Reilly and Dugard published Confronting the Presidents amidst the heated campaign. (click here for our review)

Confronting Evil is the second book of this series, and the first O'Reilly has co-authored with Josh Hammer, who writes and produces some of the most successful programs in the country. They will recount the deeds of the worst people in history, from Roman emperor Caligula to Genghis Khan; to the collective evil of nineteenth-center slave traders and twentieth-century robber barons; from Stalin, Hitler, and Mao, up to present times, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of Drug Cartels. 

O'Reilly shows that the concept of evil is universal, ancient, and ever-present in today's world. For as long as humans have roamed the Earth, evil has lurked, and the Book of Genesis defines it when Cain killed his brother Abel out of jealousy.

Collectively, the warlords, tyrants, businessmen, and criminals profiled in this book bear responsibility for the death and misery of hundreds of millions of people. It is an endless struggle between good and evil, and it is a daily temptation and choice we are confronted with each day. 

That leads to the decision we're confronted with when evil is present, to look away or to get involved to do what is right. 

In this deep study of 15 evil people, O'Reilly finds that too many times, people looked away and did not act on their conscience. There are consequences to that inaction, and it always leads to a horrific end. For example, O’Reilly starts his chapter on Putin in 1989, a full decade before he rose to become President.

This book comes at a particularly tough moment for the world, as Putin, soon after appearing at a summit with President Trump seeking to end the war in Ukraine, just appeared at a summit last week with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and North Korea's Kim Jong Un, sending the message to the world an alliance between those nations is possible.

In this excerpt, O'Reilly writes about how he views evil and how he has seen it up close in his career: "The victims of evil behavior are countless. Yet, some folks still don't believe in the concept. Often, those in the secular-progressive precincts object to moral judgments. There's always an excuse. That's called 'relativism.'

Examples. The dope sellers say they are only providing a product that is sought after. The lobby promoting leniency for heinous criminals cites an unjust society - especially in racist matters - as an excuse not to punish harmful conduct. Individual abusers often say the atrocities they commit are not their fault because they, themselves, were abused.

That's all pathetic avoidance, of course. It's malevolent sleight of hand. Destructive people must be confronted or the suffering of innocents will grow, as history demonstrates.

Here's my definition of evil: harming a human being without remorse.

Vivid. Concise. Nothing more needed.

Of course, self and family defense as well as 'righteous' war situations are not part of the evil equation. 

In this world, the primary drivers of wickedness are money, power, and zealotry.

The decline of theological belief and the embrace of selfish behavior have elevated evil to a level never before seen on earth. As people reject a higher power that implores justice and compassion, it becomes easier to ignore moral boundaries.

And now wickedness has a personal delivery system: high tech. Every destructive act is a click away. Evildoers find each other with ease. Disturbing behavior is available to anyone, anytime.

Think about that when you see children obsessed with their cell phones.

My mother, Winifred Angela O'Reilly, never confronted evil. She lived modestly, protected from outside intruders. She found solace in her family, faith, and friends. She was a good woman who lived a good life.

Her son has seen far too many atrocities. El Salvador. Northern Ireland. The World Trade Center rubble,. Dachau. Afghanistan. Iraq. Drug dens full of lost souls committing slow suicide. Thailand's child slavery market. Black mass sites. Corporate boardrooms, where the embrace of barbaric behavior for profit can be as common as ordering lunch."