Human Destructiveness: The Roots of Genocide and Human Cruelty (Psychology Revivals) - Softcover

Storr, Anthony

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415832225 ISBN 13: 9780415832229

Publisher: Routledge, 2014

Synopsis

Originally published in 1972, this fully revised edition was published in 1991 and provides a classic study of humanity’s capacity for evil.

The human species is capable of the most appalling cruelty. Why is this and where does our capacity for such destructiveness come from? In Human Destructiveness, Anthony Storr explores these important questions.

In seeking to shed light on such brutal phenomena as genocide, racial conflict and other large-scale manifestations of violence, he cautions against easy extrapolations from individual behaviour to the behaviour of groups and nations, though he offers illuminating discussions of aggressive personality disorders, sadomasochism and the mechanisms of paranoid delusion. Most provocatively, he locates the propensity for mass outbreaks of cruelty in the imagination: ‘to be able to see fellow human beings as wholly evil requires an imaginative capacity not found in other species.’

Combining wide scholarship, humane intelligence and a graceful style, Human Destructiveness provides an illuminating study of some of the darkest corners of the human psyche.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

breaking work by world-renowned psychiatrist Anthony Storr, author of the widely acclaimed SOLITUDE, focuses on one of the most disturbing aspects of human behavior: our virutally unlimited capacity to inflict cruelty.

Originally published in the early 1970s, HUMAN DESTRUCTIVENESS has been completely revised by the author to reflect the most up-to-date research and his own accumulated experience as a psychotherapist. The result is a thought-provoking work that sheds new light not only on such vast historical cataclysms as the Holocaust, but on some of the most compelling social issues of today -- the physical and sexual abuse of children; the upsurge in violent crime; the routine use of torture in many allegedly civilized nations. Dr. Storr challenges widely held views on a broad range of subjects, including child-rearing, criminal justice, caste and class, alcohol and drug addiction, violence in the media, and the limits on the obligation to obey authority. For this edition he has writte

About the Author

Anthony Storr was a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and an Emeritus Fellow of Green College, Oxford. He was the author of numerous books, including "The Integrity of the Personality, The Dynamics of Creation, The Essential Jung, " and "The Art of Psychotherapy." Dr. Storr died in 2001.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0415832225
• ISBN 13: 9780415832229
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 184