The Psychology of Genocide: Perpetrators, Bystanders, and Rescuers, Steven K. Baum (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), xl + 255 pp., cloth 81.00, pbk. 24.99, e-book 21.00
With the findings of Christopher Browning's study Ordinary Men and James Waller's Becoming Evil it became clear that Holocaust and other genocide perpetrators had not been aberrant “monsters.” Nor had they suffered from uncommon or extreme mental deficiency. It also became apparent that th...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Review |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2009
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| In: |
Holocaust and genocide studies
Year: 2009, Volume: 23, Issue: 3, Pages: 506-508 |
| Review of: | The psychology of genocide (Cambridge [u.a.] : Cambridge Univ. Press, 2008) (Böhm, Peter)
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| Further subjects: | B
Book review
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | With the findings of Christopher Browning's study Ordinary Men and James Waller's Becoming Evil it became clear that Holocaust and other genocide perpetrators had not been aberrant “monsters.” Nor had they suffered from uncommon or extreme mental deficiency. It also became apparent that their behavior had not been based on a predisposition of character. Instead it was established that a perpetrator's conduct—as abominable as it might have been—was in greater part a response to an actual “cultural” setting: situation, opportunity, group expectation. Research into the nature of the human being has shown that “most evil is the product of rather ordinary people caught up in unusual circumstances” (p. 170). |
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| ISSN: | 1476-7937 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Holocaust and genocide studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/hgs/dcp055 |