The Genocidal Mentality

Examines the psychological problems arising from dependence on nuclear weapons

Does the nuclear arms race, with its "grotesque . . . mass planning for genocide," resemble the Nazis' slaughter of Jews? The authors draw provocative, if partial, parallels. Just as Germany's top doctors became "biological managers," supervising the extermination ovens, so the U.S. and Soviet war machines employ top physicists and think-tank technicians to coldly plan our annihilation. Just as the Nazis went to great lengths to conceal their mass murder, so the nuclearists stress the "preventive" nature of the gigantic, ever-growing stockpiles while blunting public consciousness of our rush to Armageddon. And just as the Nazi genocide became "a silent, collective crusade" involving German society as a whole, so the nuclear elite keep the masses at the threshold of genocide by asserting a willingness to cross that threshold. This is a gutsy, disturbing and important book by eminent psychosocial historian Lifton ( The Nazi Doctors ) and sociologist Markusen (coeditor of Nuclear Weapons and the Threat of Nuclear War ) .
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.