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| robert jay lifton: Losing Reality Robert Jay Lifton, 2019-10-15 A definitive account of the psychology of zealotry, from a National Book Award winner and a leading authority on the nature of cults, political absolutism, and mind control In this unique and timely volume, Robert Jay Lifton, the National Book Award-winning psychiatrist, historian, and public intellectual proposes a radical idea: that the psychological relationship between extremist political movements and fanatical religious cults may be much closer than anyone thought. Exploring the most extreme manifestations of human zealotry, Lifton highlights an array of leaders--from Mao to Hitler to the Japanese apocalyptic cult leader Shoko Asahara to Donald Trump--who have sought the control of human minds and the ownership of reality. Lifton has spent decades exploring psychological extremism. His pioneering concept of the Eight Deadly Sins of ideological totalism--originally devised to identify brainwashing (or thought reform) in political movements--has been widely quoted in writings about cults, and embraced by members and former members of religious cults seeking to understand their experiences. In this book, Lifton weaves together some of his finest work with extensive new commentary to provide vital understanding of mental predators, their assaults on truth, and our efforts to regain reality. |
| robert jay lifton: Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism Robert Jay Lifton, 2012-01-01 Informed by Erik Erikson’s concept of the formation of ego identity, this book, which first appreared in 1961, is an analysis of the experiences of fifteen Chinese citizens and twenty-five Westerners who underwent “brainwashing” by the Communist Chinese government. Robert Lifton constructs these case histories through personal interviews and outlines a thematic pattern of death and rebirth, accompanied by feelings of guilt, that characterizes the process of “thought reform.” In a new preface, Lifton addresses the implications of his model for the study of American religious cults. |
| robert jay lifton: Destroying the World to Save It Robert Jay Lifton, 2000-09-01 National Book Award winner and renowned psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton reveals a world at risk from millennial cults intent on ending it all. Since the earliest moments of recorded history, prophets and gurus have foretold the world's end, but only in the nuclear age has it been possible for a megalomaniac guru with a world-ending vision to bring his prophecy to pass. Now Robert Jay Lifton offers a vivid and disturbing case in point in this chilling exploration of Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult that released sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subways. With unprecedented access to former Aum members, Lifton has produced a pathbreaking study of the inner life of a modern millennial cult. He shows how Aum's guru Shoko Asahara (charismatic spiritual leader, con man, madman) created a religion from a global stew of New Age thinking, ancient rituals, and apocalyptic science fiction, then recruited scientists as disciples and set them to producing weapons of mass destruction. Taking stock as well of Charles Manson, Heaven's Gate, and the Oklahoma City bombers, Lifton confronts the frightening possibility of a twenty-first century in which cults and terrorists may be able to bring about their own holocausts. Bold and compelling, Destroying the World to Save It charts the emergence of a new global threat of urgent concern to us all. |
| robert jay lifton: The Protean Self Robert J. Lifton, 1995-01-04 ”Proteanism”—or the protean self—describes a psychological phenomenon integral to our times. We live in a world marked by breathtaking historical change and instantaneous global communication. Our lives seem utterly unpredictable: there are few absolutes. Rather than collapsing under these threats and pulls, Robert Jay Lifton tells us, the self turns out to be remarkably resilient. Like the Greek god Proteaus, who was able to change shape in response to crisis, we create new psychological combinations, immersing ourselves in fresh and surprising endeavors over our lifetimes. |
| robert jay lifton: The Climate Swerve Robert Jay Lifton, 2017-10-10 Longlisted for the PEN America/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing Well worth the read. . . . [A] prescient handoff to the next generation of scholars. —The Washington Post From one of the world’s foremost thinkers (Bill Moyers), a profound, hopeful, and timely call for an emerging new collective consciousness to combat climate change Over his long career as witness to an extreme twentieth century, National Book Award-winning psychiatrist, historian, and public intellectual Robert Jay Lifton has grappled with the profound effects of nuclear war, terrorism, and genocide. Now he shifts to climate change, which, Lifton writes, presents us with what may be the most demanding and unique psychological task ever required of humankind, what he describes as the task of mobilizing our imaginative resources toward climate sanity. Thanks to the power of corporate-funded climate denialists and the fact that with its slower, incremental sequence, [climate change] lends itself less to the apocalyptic drama, a large swathe of humanity has numbed themselves to the reality of climate change. Yet Lifton draws a message of hope from the Paris climate meeting of 2015 where representatives of virtually all nations joined in the recognition that we are a single species in deep trouble. Here, Lifton suggests in this lucid and moving book that recalls Rachel Carson and Jonathan Schell, was evidence of how we might call upon the human mind—our greatest evolutionary asset—to translate a growing species awareness—or climate swerve—into action to sustain our habitat and civilization. |
| robert jay lifton: Death in Life Robert Jay Lifton, 2012-01-01 In Japan, hibakusha means the people affected by the explosion--specifically, the explosion of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima in 1945. In this classic study, winner of the 1969 National Book Award in Science, Lifton studies the psychological effects of the bomb on 90,000 survivors. He sees this analysis as providing a last chance to understand--and be motivated to avoid--nuclear war. This compassionate treatment is a significant contribution to the atomic age. |
| robert jay lifton: The Nazi Doctors Robert Jay Lifton, 2000 |
| robert jay lifton: Hiroshima in America Robert Jay Lifton, Greg Mitchell, 1995 Argues that information and debate about President Truman's decision to drop the bomb on Japan have been suppressed in order to prevent criticism of America. |
| robert jay lifton: Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans: Neither Victims Nor Executioners Robert Jay Lifton, 1973 Extensive interviews reveal the psychological effects of the Vietnam War on American soldiers, focusing on their common struggles to cope with killing and dying-- |
| robert jay lifton: The Life Of The Self Robert J. Lifton, 1983-11-14 |
| robert jay lifton: Facing Apocalypse David LeRoy Miller, 1987-03 Essays by Norman O. Brown, Danilo Dolci, Wolfgang Giegerich, James Hillman, Denise Levertov, Robert Jay Lifton, Joanna Macy, David Miller, Mike Perlam, and Mary Watkins. An extraordinary and prescient conference took place at Salva Regina College in Newport, Rhode Island, in June 1983. The theme was Re-Imagining the End of the World. The audience brought together a radical mix of peace activists, clergy, poets, psychoanalysts, military historians, and officers from Newport‘s Naval War College. Facing Apocalypse presents the brilliant papers of those two days and the force of ten speakers‘ knowledge and conviction, including Norman O. Brown‘s radical reflections on Islam, David Miller‘s and Wolfgang Giegerich‘s unveiling of the the theological fantasies of the end of the world, and James Hillman‘s invocations of the God Mars. |
| robert jay lifton: Arise Africa, Roar China Yunxiang Gao, 2021-12-17 This book explores the close relationships between three of the most famous twentieth-century African Americans, W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, and Langston Hughes, and their little-known Chinese allies during World War II and the Cold War—journalist, musician, and Christian activist Liu Liangmo, and Sino-Caribbean dancer-choreographer Sylvia Si-lan Chen. Charting a new path in the study of Sino-American relations, Gao Yunxiang foregrounds African Americans, combining the study of Black internationalism and the experiences of Chinese Americans with a transpacific narrative and an understanding of the global remaking of China’s modern popular culture and politics. Gao reveals earlier and more widespread interactions between Chinese and African American leftists than accounts of the familiar alliance between the Black radicals and the Maoist Chinese would have us believe. The book’s multilingual approach draws from massive yet rarely used archival streams in China and in Chinatowns and elsewhere in the United States. These materials allow Gao to retell the well-known stories of Du Bois, Robeson, and Hughes alongside the sagas of Liu and Chen in a work that will transform and redefine Afro-Asia studies. |
| robert jay lifton: The Genocidal Mentality Robert J. Lifton, 1991-11-18 Examines the cast of mind that created and maintains the nuclear threat and suggests an alternative direction. |
| robert jay lifton: Indefensible Weapons Robert J. Lifton, Richard A. Falk, 1982-10-19 |
| robert jay lifton: Superpower Syndrome Robert Jay Lifton, 2003 No one is better equipped than psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton-a leading scholar of thought control and mass violence- to make sense of the extreme moment. From Hiroshima survivors to Nazi doctors, from Vietnam veterans to the cult that sarin-gassed the Tokyo subways, he has explained to us global apocalyptic urges, the ravages of psychic numbness, and the psychology of the survivor. Now, as al- Qaeda's desire to purify the earth of evil meets the unilateral urge to dominate the globe's sole superpower, Lifton believes we have arrived at a remarkably perilous moment. The United States-from its leaders to much of its people-feels itself painfully vulnerable and thinks of itself as a survivor nation. The combination of such feelings roiling through the land over the last year and an administration with unprecedented military power bent on dominating and purifying the earth adds up to an intensely dangerous atmosphere-in fact, a syndrome. Unfortunately, there is no therapy available for empires-or rather, the only therapy available is self-prescribed. But while Lifton can't be therapist to the earth's last superpower, he can bring together a half century of wisdom and apply it to Superpower Syndrome. |
| robert jay lifton: Crimes of War Richard Falk, Irene Gendzier, Robert Jay Lifton, 2006-04-18 Crimes of War—Iraq provides a comprehensive legal, historical, and psychological exploration of the war in Iraq from the same editorial team whose 1971 Crimes of War was a landmark book about Vietnam and the revelation of American war crimes. The editors apply standards of international criminal law, as set forth at Nuremberg after World War II, and by subsequent developments regarding individual responsibility and accountability. These principles have to do with the waging of aggressive war, attacks on civilian centers of population, rights of resistance against an illegal occupation, and the abuse of prisoners. Explorations of psychology and human behavior include levels of motivation and response in connection with torture at Abu Ghraib; the phenomenon of the atrocity-producing situation in both Vietnam and Iraq (in which counter-insurgency, military policies, and angry grief could cause ordinary people to participate in atrocities); the behavior of doctors and medics in colluding in torture at Abu Ghraib; emerging testimony of American veterans of Iraq concerning the confusions of the mission, and the widespread killing of civilians; and accounts of broadening unease and psychological disturbance among men and women engaged in combat. |
| robert jay lifton: Future Of Immortality Robert J. Lifton, 1987-03-17 |
| robert jay lifton: The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump Bandy X. Lee, 2019-03-19 As this bestseller predicted, Trump has only grown more erratic and dangerous as the pressures on him mount. This new edition includes new essays bringing the book up to date—because this is still not normal. Originally released in fall 2017, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump was a runaway bestseller. Alarmed Americans and international onlookers wanted to know: What is wrong with him? That question still plagues us. The Trump administration has proven as chaotic and destructive as its opponents feared, and the man at the center of it all remains a cipher. Constrained by the APA’s “Goldwater rule,” which inhibits mental health professionals from diagnosing public figures they have not personally examined, many of those qualified to weigh in on the issue have shied away from discussing it at all. The public has thus been left to wonder whether he is mad, bad, or both. The prestigious mental health experts who have contributed to the revised and updated version of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump argue that their moral and civic duty to warn supersedes professional neutrality. Whatever affects him, affects the nation: From the trauma people have experienced under the Trump administration to the cult-like characteristics of his followers, he has created unprecedented mental health consequences across our nation and beyond. With eight new essays (about one hundred pages of new material), this edition will cover the dangerous ramifications of Trump's unnatural state. It’s not all in our heads. It’s in his. |
| robert jay lifton: Beyond Invisible Walls Jacob D. Lindy, Robert Jay Lifton, 2013-05-13 When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Westerners watched those who had survived the era of Soviet trauma emerge into what we hoped would be the exhilarating light of freedom. What we have witnessed, however, is a slow and painful process of progression and regression, of hope and disillusionment, of unexpected psychological barriers: invisible walls that block the progress we had hoped for. In Beyond Invisible Walls, East European therapists, themselves, draw a compelling picture of the waves of trauma that their people endured, the institutions of trauma that remained well after Stalin's era, and their impact on survivors and their families. They describe the psychological remnants of those years: walls that confine people by unconsciously preserving old adaptations to political terror, walls that divide one part of the mind from another, and walls that rise between one generation and the next. These therapists' stories allow us a striking glimpse into how patients' trauma evokes the therapists' own wounds; how both speaker and empathic listener find their way to a healing process, how the two begin to dismantle these invisible walls. |
| robert jay lifton: Why Did They Kill? Alexander Laban Hinton, 2004-12-06 Of all the horrors human beings perpetrate, genocide stands near the top of the list. Its toll is staggering: well over 100 million dead worldwide. Why Did They Kill? is one of the first anthropological attempts to analyze the origins of genocide. In it, Alexander Hinton focuses on the devastation that took place in Cambodia from April 1975 to January 1979 under the Khmer Rouge in order to explore why mass murder happens and what motivates perpetrators to kill. Basing his analysis on years of investigative work in Cambodia, Hinton finds parallels between the Khmer Rouge and the Nazi regimes. Policies in Cambodia resulted in the deaths of over 1.7 million of that country's 8 million inhabitants—almost a quarter of the population--who perished from starvation, overwork, illness, malnutrition, and execution. Hinton considers this violence in light of a number of dynamics, including the ways in which difference is manufactured, how identity and meaning are constructed, and how emotionally resonant forms of cultural knowledge are incorporated into genocidal ideologies. |
| robert jay lifton: Death Work Vincent E. Henry, 2004 Through extensive field observation and structured interviews with NYPD officers, Henry reveals patterns of psychological transformation and social consequences of police encounters with death. |
| robert jay lifton: The Broken Connection Robert Jay Lifton, 1980 |
| robert jay lifton: The Burdens of Survival David C. Stahl, 2003-02-28 Although still virtually unknown in the West, Ôoka Shôhei (1909-1988) is one of Japan's most important and influential writers and social critics. The Burdens of Survival is both a seminal English-language study of this preeminent literary figure and one of the first scholarly works to thoroughly examine the war literature of a major Japanese veteran-author. Drawing on Robert Jay Lifton's work on traumatic experience and survivor psychology, the book tells the illuminating story of Ôoka's arduous journey that began with guilt-ridden survival as a prisoner of war in the Philippines and culminated some twenty-five years later in the fruitful completion of survivor mission. David C. Stahl examines Ôoka's battlefield memoirs, including the established war classic Fires on the Plain (1952), in terms of extreme experience, survivor guilt, bearing witness, and the inability to mourn. Writing enabled Ôoka to give cathartic expression to his haunting battlefield experience and made it possible for him to move from blame-shifting to empathy and mourning. The lengthy, exhaustively researched historical work The Battle for Leyte Island (1967-1969) faithfully details the personal and collective experience of battle, depravation, and loss, and clarifies who and what was ultimately responsible for defeat. Toward the end of this work and Return to Mindoro Island (1969), Ooka draws attention to the outstanding obligations owed by his countrymen to the war dead and suggests how they can be fulfilled by public confrontation, learning the lessons of defeat, and using them to rectify lingering social and political evils. |
| robert jay lifton: Six Lives, Six Deaths Robert Jay Lifton, Shūichi Katō, Michael Reich, 1979 Biographical sketches show how six writers and public figures prepared for their deaths. |
| robert jay lifton: Ozone Journal Peter Balakian, 2015-03-26 The title poem of Peter Balakian's 'Ozone Journal' is a sequence of fifty-four short sections, each a poem in itself, recounting the speaker's memory of excavating the bones of Armenian genocide victims in the Syrian desert with a crew of television journalists in 2009. These memories spark others - the dissolution of his marriage, his life as a young single parent in Manhattan in the nineties, visits and conversations with a cousin dying of AIDS - creating a montage that has the feel of history as lived experience. Bookending this sequence are shorter lyrics that span times and locations, from Nairobi to the Native American villages of New Mexico |
| robert jay lifton: Generation Dread Britt Wray, 2022-05-03 FINALIST FOR THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD A CBC BEST CANADIAN NONFICTION BOOK OF 2022 AN INDIGO TOP TEN BEST SELF-HELP BOOK OF 2022 A vital and deeply compelling read.” —Adam McKay, award-winning writer, director and producer (Don’t Look Up) “Britt Wray shows that addressing global climate change begins with attending to the climate within.” —Dr. Gabor Maté, author of The Myth of Normal Read this courageous book.” —Naomi Klein An impassioned generational perspective on how to stay sane amid climate disruption. Climate and environment-related fears and anxieties are on the rise everywhere. As with any type of stress, eco-anxiety can lead to lead to burnout, avoidance, or a disturbance of daily functioning. In Generation Dread, Britt Wray seamlessly merges scientific knowledge with emotional insight to show how these intense feelings are a healthy response to the troubled state of the world. The first crucial step toward becoming an engaged steward of the planet is connecting with our climate emotions, seeing them as a sign of humanity, and learning how to live with them. We have to face and value eco-anxiety, Wray argues, before we can conquer the deeply ingrained, widespread reactions of denial and disavowal that have led humanity to this alarming period of ecological decline. It’s not a level playing field when it comes to our vulnerability to the climate crisis, she notes, but as the situation worsens, we are all on the field—and unlocking deep stores of compassion and care is more important than ever. Weaving in insights from climate-aware therapists, critical perspectives on race and privilege in this crisis, ideas about the future of mental health innovation, and creative coping strategies, Generation Dread brilliantly illuminates how we can learn from the past, from our own emotions, and from each other to survive—and even thrive—in a changing world. |
| robert jay lifton: The Better Angels of Our Nature Steven Pinker, 2011-10-04 “If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be this—the most inspiring book I've ever read. —Bill Gates (May, 2017) Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year The author of Rationality and Enlightenment Now offers a provocative and surprising history of violence. Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millenia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence. For most of history, war, slavery, infanticide, child abuse, assassinations, programs, gruesom punishments, deadly quarrels, and genocide were ordinary features of life. But today, Pinker shows (with the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps) all these forms of violence have dwindled and are widely condemned. How has this happened? This groundbreaking book continues Pinker's exploration of the esesnce of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly nonviolent world. The key, he explains, is to understand our intrinsic motives--the inner demons that incline us toward violence and the better angels that steer us away--and how changing circumstances have allowed our better angels to prevail. Exploding fatalist myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious and provocative book is sure to be hotly debated in living rooms and the Pentagon alike, and will challenge and change the way we think about our society. |
| robert jay lifton: The Web of Violence Jennifer E. Turpin, Lester R. Kurtz, 1997 An excellent representation of the interdisciplinary thrust of peace studies. -- Paul Joseph, Tufts University Violence is a topic of concern everywhere--in the media, in churches, in the halls of governments. In every land and in every culture violence is considered by most to be taboo, a last resort. Yet under certain conditions, from the level of the family to the level of nations, violence is used as a mechanism of social control. Various rationalizations thus emerge to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate violence. The Web of Violence explores the interrelationship among personal, collective, national, and global levels of violence. This unique collection brings together a number of internationally known contributors to address the genesis and manifestations of violence in the search for a remedy for this confounding social problem. As the global community becomes more intimate, we must better understand the nature of violence. The Web of Violence supports this aim by examining the dangerous human phenomenon from many perspectives, at different levels, and using multiple methodologies. CONTRIBUTORS: Robert Jay Lifton, Christopher G. Ellison, John P. Bartkowski, Yuan-Horng Chu, Philip Smith, Robert Elias, Birgit Brock-Utne, Riane Eisler, Johan Galtung |
| robert jay lifton: Understanding Trauma Laurence J. Kirmayer, Robert Lemelson, Mark Barad, 2007-01-15 This book analyzes the individual and collective experience of and response to trauma from a wide range of perspectives including basic neuroscience, clinical science, and cultural anthropology. Each perspective presents critical and creative challenges to the other. The first section reviews the effects of early life stress on the development of neural systems and vulnerability to persistent effects of trauma. The second section of the book reviews a wide range of clinical approaches to the treatment of the effects of trauma. The final section of the book presents cultural analyses of personal, social, and political responses to massive trauma and genocidal events in a variety of societies. This work goes well beyond the neurobiological models of conditioned fear and clinical syndrome of post-traumatic stress disorder to examine how massive traumatic events affect the whole fabric of a society, calling forth collective responses of resilience and moral transformation. |
| robert jay lifton: Black Dog of Fate Peter Balakian, 2009-02-10 His visions are burning -- his poetry heartbreaking, wrote Elie Wiesel of American poet Peter Balakian. Now, in elegant prose, the prize-winning poet who James Dickey called an extraordinary talent has written a compelling memoir about growing up American in a family that was haunted by a past too fraught with terror to be spoken of openly. Black Dog of Fate is set in the affluent New Jersey suburbs where Balakian -- the firstborn son of his generation -- grew up in a close, extended family. At the center of what was a quintessential American baby boom childhood lay the dark specter of a trauma his forebears had experienced -- the Ottoman Turkish government's extermination of more than a million Armenians in 1915, the century's first genocide. In a story that climaxes to powerful personal and moral revelations, Balakian traces the complex process of discovering the facts of his people's history and the horrifying aftermath of the Turkish government's campaign to cover up one of the worst crimes ever committed against humanity. In describing his awakening to the facts of history, Balakian introduces us to a remarkable family of matriarchs and merchants, physicians, a bishop, and his aunts, two well-known figures in the world of literature. The unforgettable central figure of the story is Balakian's grandmother, a survivor and widow of the Genocide who speaks in fragments of metaphor and myth as she cooks up Armenian delicacies, plays the stock market, and keeps track of the baseball stats of her beloved Yankees. The book is infused with the intense and often comic collision between this family's ancient Near Eastern traditions and the American pop culture of the '50s and '60s.Balakian moves with ease from childhood memory, to history, to his ancestors' lives, to the story of a poet's coming of age. Written with power and grace, Black Dog of Fate unfolds like a tapestry its tale of survival against enormous odds. Through the eyes of a poet, here is the arresting story of a family's journey from its haunted past to a new life in a new world. |
| robert jay lifton: The Negro Motorist Green Book Victor H. Green, The Negro Motorist Green Book was a groundbreaking guide that provided African American travelers with crucial information on safe places to stay, eat, and visit during the era of segregation in the United States. This essential resource, originally published from 1936 to 1966, offered a lifeline to black motorists navigating a deeply divided nation, helping them avoid the dangers and indignities of racism on the road. More than just a travel guide, The Negro Motorist Green Book stands as a powerful symbol of resilience and resistance in the face of oppression, offering a poignant glimpse into the challenges and triumphs of the African American experience in the 20th century. |
| robert jay lifton: Whose Freud? Peter Brooks, Alex Woloch, Professor of English at Stanford University Alex Woloch, 2000-01-01 Features contributors, Judith Butler, Frederick Crews, Leo Bersani, Juliet Mitchell, Robert Jay Lifton, Richard Wollheim and other theorists from such fields as literature, philosophy, film, history, cultural studies, neuroscience, psychotherapy. Under discussion in all these articles is whether Freud is still relevant, specifically whether psychoanalysis is still a valid theory of mind, if its therapeutic applications have been rendered obsolete by drugs, how psychoanalysis still figures in debates about sexual identity despite its rejection by many feminists, and how Freud's work still contributes to cultural analysis. The editor's conclusion is that Freud is not only still relevant but the presiding genius of our culture and the author of its symptomatic illnesses. Papers were delivered in a 1998 symposium at Yale, the locale from which Freud launched his original invasion of the US psyche nearly a century before. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR |
| robert jay lifton: Perpetrators Guenter Lewy, 2017-07-01 Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions. Primo Levi's words disclose a chilling truth: assigning blame to hideous political leaders, such as Hitler, Himmler, and Heydrich, is necessary but not sufficient to explain how the Holocaust could have happened. These leaders, in fact, relied on many thousands of ordinary men and women who made the Nazi machine work on a daily basis--members of the killing squads, guards accompanying the trains to the extermination camps, civilian employees of the SS, the drivers of gas trucks, and the personnel of death factories such as Auschwitz. Why did these ordinary people collaborate and willingly become mass murderers? In Perpetrators: The World of the Holocaust Killers, Guenter Lewy tries to answer one of history's most disturbing questions. Lewy draws on a wealth of previously untapped sources, including letters and diaries of soldiers who served in Russia, the recollections of Jewish survivors, archival documents, and most importantly, the trial records of hundreds of Nazi functionaries. The result is a ghastly, extraordinarily detailed portrait of the Holocaust perpetrators, their mindset, and the motivations for their actions. Combining a rigorous historical analysis with psychological insight, the book explores the dynamics of participation in large-scale atrocities, offering a thought-provoking and timely reflection on individual responsibility for collective crimes. Lewy concludes that the perpetrators acted out of a variety of motives--a sense of duty, obedience to authority, thirst for career, and a blind faith in anti-Semitic ideology, among others. A witness to the 1938 Kristallnacht himself and the son of a concentration camp survivor, Lewy has searched for the reasons of the Holocaust out of far more than theoretical interest: it is a passionate attempt to illuminate a dismal chapter of his life--and of human history--that cannot be forgotten. |
| robert jay lifton: The Fate of the Earth and The Abolition Jonathan Schell, 2000 These two books, which helped focus national attention on the movement for a nuclear freeze, are published in one volume. |
| robert jay lifton: Human Adaptation to Extreme Stress John P. Wilson, Zev Harel, Boaz Kahana, 2013-11-11 This book is one additional indication that a new field of study is emerging within the social sciences, if it has not emerged already. Here is a sampling of the fruit of a field whose roots can be traced to the earliest medical writings in Kahun Papyrus in 1900 B.C. In this document, according to Ilza Veith, the earliest medical scholars described what was later identified as hysteria. This description was long before the 1870s and 1880s when Char cot speculated on the etiology of hysteria and well before the first use of the term traumatic neurosis at the turn of this Century. Traumatic stress studies is the investigation of the immediate and long-term psychosocial consequences of highly stressful events and the factors that affect those consequences. This definition includes three primary elements: event, conse quences, and causal factors affecting the perception of both. This collection of papers addresses all three elements and collectively contributes to our understanding and appreciation of the struggles of those who have en dured so much, often with little recognition of their experiences. |
| robert jay lifton: Listening to Trauma , 2014-11-25 Interviews and intimate photographic portraits of witnesses to the collective and cultural significance of trauma. This new collection from Cathy Caruth features interviews with a diverse group of leaders in the theorization of, and response to, traumatic experience in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Crossing the boundaries of discipline and profession, Caruth’s subjects include literary theorists and critics, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, psychologists, political activists, filmmakers, public intellectuals, institutional leaders, and researchers. Exploring the intertwining of the intellectual and personal dimensions of experience, each interview is accompanied by Caruth's intimate photographic portrait of its subject. Caruth chose her subjects because of their impact on her thinking as well as their significant role as witnesses to the collective and cultural significance of trauma. The individuals profiled here are innovators in the theory of trauma (Part I), in the clinical, activist, or testimonial interventions in trauma (Part II), or in the creation or modification of institutions that provide therapeutic, artistic, or legal responses to traumatic events (Part III). Two of the interviews first appeared in Caruth's landmark 1995 work, Trauma: Explorations in Memory. The rest were conducted between 2011 and 2013 after the field of trauma studies expanded significantly. Representing both the foundation of trauma research and cutting-edge approaches to the topic, this collection will be useful to practitioners with an interest in post-traumatic stress disorder as well as scholars exploring the multiple dimensions of profound human experience. A portion of the proceeds from sales of this book will go to the Grady Nia Project for abused, suicidal, and low-income African American women. |
| robert jay lifton: China's Muslims and Japan's Empire Kelly A. Hammond, 2020 In this transnational history of World War II, Kelly A. Hammond places Sino-Muslims at the center of imperial Japan's challenges to Chinese nation-building efforts. Revealing the little known story of Japan's interest in Islam during its occupation of North China, Hammond shows how Japanese aimed to defeat Chinese Nationalists in winning the hearts and minds of Sino-Muslims, a vital minority population. Offering programs that presented themselves as benevolent protectors of Islam, the Japanese aimed to provide Muslims with a viable alternative-and, at the same time, to create new Muslim consumer markets that would, in Japan's vision, help to subvert the existing global capitalist world order and destabilize the Soviets-- |
| robert jay lifton: International Handbook of Traumatic Stress Syndromes John P. Wilson, Beverley Raphael, 2012-02-07 Over 100 researchers from 16 countries contribute to the first comprehensive handbook on post-traumatic stress disorder. Eight major sections present information on assessment, measurement, and research protocols for trauma related to war veterans, victims of torture, children, and the aged. Clinicians and researchers will find it an indispensible reference, touching on such disciplines and psychiatry, psychology, social work, counseling, sociology, neurophysiology, and political science. |
| robert jay lifton: Hiroshima John Hersey, 2020-06-23 Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author John Hersey's seminal work of narrative nonfiction which has defined the way we think about nuclear warfare. “One of the great classics of the war (The New Republic) that tells what happened in Hiroshima during World War II through the memories of the survivors of the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a city. The perspective [Hiroshima] offers from the bomb’s actual victims is the mandatory counterpart to any Oppenheimer viewing. —GQ Magazine “Nothing can be said about this book that can equal what the book has to say. It speaks for itself, and in an unforgettable way, for humanity.” —The New York Times Hiroshima is the story of six human beings who lived through the greatest single manmade disaster in history. John Hersey tells what these six -- a clerk, a widowed seamstress, a physician, a Methodist minister, a young surgeon, and a German Catholic priest -- were doing at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, when Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a city. Then he follows the course of their lives hour by hour, day by day. The New Yorker of August 31, 1946, devoted all its space to this story. The immediate repercussions were vast: newspapers here and abroad reprinted it; during evening half-hours it was read over the network of the American Broadcasting Company; leading editorials were devoted to it in uncounted newspapers. Almost four decades after the original publication of this celebrated book John Hersey went back to Hiroshima in search of the people whose stories he had told. His account of what he discovered about them -- the variety of ways in which they responded to the past and went on with their lives -- is now the eloquent and moving final chapter of Hiroshima. |
| robert jay lifton: History and Human Survival Robert Jay Lifton, 1970 |
Robert - Wikipedia
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic *Hrōþi- "fame" and *berhta- "bright" (Hrōþiberhtaz). [1] . Compare Old Dutch Robrecht and Old High German …
Meaning, origin and history of the name Robert
Oct 6, 2024 · From the Germanic name Hrodebert meaning "bright fame", derived from the elements hruod "fame" and beraht "bright". The Normans introduced this name to Britain, …
Robert: Name Meaning, Origin, Popularity - Parents
5 days ago · Robert is an old German name that means “bright fame.” It’s taken from the old German name Hrodebert. The name is made up of two elements: hrod which means "fame" …
Robert Kincaid (58) Great Falls, VA (270)723-7853
Apr 28, 2015 · Robert T Kincaid is 58 years old and was born in March of 1967. Currently Robert lives at the address 1098 Mccue Ct, Great Falls VA 22066. Robert has lived at this Great …
Robert: meaning, origin, and significance explained
Meaning: The name Robert is of English origin and carries the meaning of “Bright Fame.” It is a classic and timeless name that has been popular for centuries. Those named Robert are often …
Robert North in Virginia 11 people found - Whitepages
Find Robert's current address in Virginia, phone number and email. Contact information for people named Robert North found in Great Falls, Abingdon, Arlington and 6 other U.S. cities in VA, …
Robert - Name Meaning and Origin
The name Robert is of Germanic origin and is derived from the elements "hrod," meaning "fame," and "beraht," meaning "bright." It carries the meaning of "bright fame" or "famous one." Robert …
Robert Knieriem - Advisory, Integration Sales Architect - LinkedIn
Over a decade of working in high-performing entrepreneurial, defense and enterprise sales teams. Interested in products that sit at the intersection of technical...
Robert Wilson Mobley, AIA
Welcome to the web site of an architect who loves designing architecture of all types - particularly houses and changes to houses. I hope this site gives you a glimpse of my passion and love for …
Robert Name: Origin, Popularity, Hebrew, Biblical, & Spiritual …
Nov 15, 2023 · Robert offers a compelling combination of historical significance, distinguished origins, and widespread recognition. Its meaning of “bright fame” speaks to the potential for …
Robert - Wikipedia
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic *Hrōþi- "fame" and *berhta- "bright" (Hrōþiberhtaz). [1] . Compare Old Dutch Robrecht and Old High German …
Meaning, origin and history of the name Robert
Oct 6, 2024 · From the Germanic name Hrodebert meaning "bright fame", derived from the elements hruod "fame" and beraht "bright". The Normans introduced this name to Britain, …
Robert: Name Meaning, Origin, Popularity - Parents
5 days ago · Robert is an old German name that means “bright fame.” It’s taken from the old German name Hrodebert. The name is made up of two elements: hrod which means "fame" …
Robert Kincaid (58) Great Falls, VA (270)723-7853
Apr 28, 2015 · Robert T Kincaid is 58 years old and was born in March of 1967. Currently Robert lives at the address 1098 Mccue Ct, Great Falls VA 22066. Robert has lived at this Great …
Robert: meaning, origin, and significance explained
Meaning: The name Robert is of English origin and carries the meaning of “Bright Fame.” It is a classic and timeless name that has been popular for centuries. Those named Robert are often …
Robert North in Virginia 11 people found - Whitepages
Find Robert's current address in Virginia, phone number and email. Contact information for people named Robert North found in Great Falls, Abingdon, Arlington and 6 other U.S. cities in VA, …
Robert - Name Meaning and Origin
The name Robert is of Germanic origin and is derived from the elements "hrod," meaning "fame," and "beraht," meaning "bright." It carries the meaning of "bright fame" or "famous one." Robert …
Robert Knieriem - Advisory, Integration Sales Architect - LinkedIn
Over a decade of working in high-performing entrepreneurial, defense and enterprise sales teams. Interested in products that sit at the intersection of technical...
Robert Wilson Mobley, AIA
Welcome to the web site of an architect who loves designing architecture of all types - particularly houses and changes to houses. I hope this site gives you a glimpse of my passion and love for …
Robert Name: Origin, Popularity, Hebrew, Biblical, & Spiritual …
Nov 15, 2023 · Robert offers a compelling combination of historical significance, distinguished origins, and widespread recognition. Its meaning of “bright fame” speaks to the potential for …
