Seven Men Who Rule the World from the Grave

by Dave Breese

Moody Press

I first encountered this book as one of the supplemental books for Summit's Understanding the Times course. It impressed me as being an excellent resource for anyone studying worldviews, especially as an introduction.

In Seven Men Who Rule from the Grave, Breese identifies seven key players in recent world history—Marx, Wellhausen, Keynes, Darwin, Dewey, Freud, and Kierkegaard—who have had tremendous impact (often for evil), even though it frequently goes unrecognized. He traces their influence from their lives up through the present.

Within this biographical framework, Breese provides deeper studies of law, philosophy, and economics. The biographical approach makes the information much more appealing than other methods of presentation. This is written at a reasonable level for most teens to read, with only a few exceptions such as in the discussion of existentialism/Kierkegaard. I recommend this book as a starting place to introduce teens to the idea of worldviews.