| Description |
xxvi, 351 pages ; 24 cm |
| Contents |
Introduction : a place called Mauthausen -- 1. The nature of extraordinary human evil -- 2. Killers of conviction : groups, ideology, and extraordinary human evil -- 3. The "mad Nazi" : psychopathology, personality, and extraordinary human evil -- 4. The dead end of demonization -- 5. Beyond demonization : a model of how ordinary people commit genocide and mass killing -- 6. Cultural construction of worldview : who are the killers? -- 7. Psychological construction of the "other" : social death of the victims -- 8. Social construction of cruelty : the power of the situation -- 9. Conclusion : can we be delivered from extraordinary human evil? -- Postscript : past as present |
| Summary |
"With this second edition, James Waller brings us up to date on some of the horrific events he used in the first edition to illustrate his theory of extraordinary human evil, pointing out steps taken both forward and back. Nearly a third of the references are new, reflecting the rapid pace of scholarship in Holocaust and genocide studies, and the issue of gender now occupies a prominent place in the discussion of the social construction of cruelty. Waller also offers a reconfigured explanatory model of evil to acknowledge that human behavior is multiply influenced and that any answer to the question "Why did that person act as he or she did?" can be examined at two levels of analysis - the proximate and the ultimate."--BOOK JACKET |
| Notes |
Previous ed.: 2002 |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 331-342) and index |
| Subject |
Genocide -- Psychological aspects.
|
|
Social psychology.
|
| LC no. |
2006048282 |
| ISBN |
0195180933 cloth alkaline paper |
|
0195314565 paperback alkaline paper |
|
9780195180930 cloth alkaline paper |
|
9780195314564 paperback alkaline paper |
|
