Human Destructiveness - Softcover

Storr, Anthony

3.64

104 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345375025 ISBN 13: 9780345375025

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1992

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This ground-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 written a new chapter on how, as a society, we can reduce the incidence of violence and cruelty.

Always lucid, and imbued with the humane intelligence and graceful style that are the hallmarks of Dr. Storr's work, HUMAN DESTRUCTIVENESS belongs in the library of every thoughtful reader who seeks to understand -- and resist -- the alarming tide of violence in our times.

"One of those rare books that can help us understand the world we have made for ourselves."

-- Los Angeles Daily News

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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.

From Publishers Weekly:

British psychiatrist Storr brings a cool, clinical approach to this analysis of murderers, rapists, sadomasochists and child abusers. Arguing that aggressive personality disorders have multiple causes--broken homes, cruel parents, disturbed brain function, etc.--he maintains that acts of violence and destructiveness involve power relationships, and often express repressed anger caused by ill treatment in childhood. Pondering atrocities such as the Holocaust, Vietnam massacres and lynchings in the U.S. South, Storr blames the propensity of the "average citizen" toward violence partly on the tendencytendency? to treat others as inferior, alien or less than human. His prescriptions to reduce violence include alleviation of poverty and the creation of socially valued work. This concise, provocative, therapeutic study expands and updates Storr's out of print 1972 book of the same title.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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