A pioneer in the field of psycho-history, National Book Award winner and psychiatrist Robert Lifton explores why fundamentally decent individuals commit atrocities. As the author of more than 20 books, Lifton has covered such topics as the effects of Hiroshima on its survivors and the Nazi doctors who served in Hitler's death camps. Lifton's latest book is a memoir entitled Witness to an Extreme Century, which Kirkus said was a “a call for a moral awakening by a deeply compassionate chronicler of our times.” Photo credit: Richard Sandler
NONFICTION
Released: June 14, 2011
"A call for a moral awakening by a deeply compassionate chronicler of our times."
A memoir by a courageous psychiatrist and National Book Award winner whose life's work has been the study of why fundamentally decent individuals commit evil acts.
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NONFICTION
Released: Nov. 1, 2000
"Convincing and impassioned without being maudlin."
Though they tread familiar ground while observing the impact of state-sanctioned violence on society, the co-authors of
Hiroshima in America (1995) have nonetheless written a compelling censure of capital punishment in America.
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 12, 1999
" Nonetheless, this is a powerful book, suggesting how fragile both the human psyche and human decency may be."
A study of the historical and psychological origins and meanings of the Japanese cult Aum Shinriky?, by the noted psychiatrist and author Lifton.
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NONFICTION
Released: July 18, 1995
"Eloquent, somber, and immensely thought-provoking. (Book-of- the-Month Club/History Book Club featured alternates)"
Noted authors Lifton (Protean Self, 1993, etc.) and Mitchell (The Campaign of the Century, 1992) ``explore what happened to America as a consequence of Hiroshimaboth the bomb's existence in the world, and our having used it.'' In a painstaking and painful psycho-historical analysis, the authors are concerned with examining the motivations of those who made the decisions, particularly Truman, and the effects of that decision on Truman and on the development of subsequent US policy.
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 27, 1993
"An almost convincing account of how to make virtue out of a necessity."
Noted psychiatrist and author Lifton (Psychiatry and Psychology/John Jay College) contends that the self is less traumatized by modern rootlessness than we might expect.
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