Review by Booklist Review
A psychiatrist whose previous books include studies of Nazi doctors, Hiroshima survivors, and Vietnam veterans, Robert Lifton manages to extract a glimmer of hope from subject matter that is relentlessly grim. In this well-wrought collection, he continues to explore the psychological and philosophical ramifications of the nuclear threat and humanity's efforts to maintain itself. In the title essay, originally presented as a lecture in 1985, references from theology, literature, and popular culture are used to illustrate the individual's relationship to nature and permanence. Subsequent pieces, organized into three sections, emphasize personal encounters with mass destruction and evil regimes, the illusory quality of international arrangements such as ``Star Wars,'' and the application of ethical principles to suicide and survival. Although the general reader may find some of Lifton's ideas difficult to grasp, this book is too powerful and relevant to be ignored by public libraries. Notes; to be indexed. PMS. 909.82'01 Civilization, Modern 1950- Psychological aspects / Immortality / Nuclear energy Social aspects / Technology and civilization [OCLC] 86-47763
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
One American GI who said he ``felt good'' immediately after killing Vietnamese civilians serves to illustrate the capacity in each of us for psychic numbing. An acquired callousness to evil and sufferingwhether the result of war, the Holocaust or the nuclear arms raceis the focus of these collected essays by the noted psychiatrist whose books include The Broken Connection and The Nazi Doctors. Lifton views Reagan's ``Star Wars'' plan for laser weapons in space as a denial of our total vulnerability. He criticizes ``nuclearism,'' a dependency on, and even worship of nuclear weapons as manifested by Reagan, Edward Teller, Herman Kahn and those evangelical Christians who see nuclear annihilation as God's will. Turning to literature, he argues that Vonnegut's death-dance, Mailer's wallowing in violence and Grass's grotesqueries all tell us that our civilization is threatened. The value of these essays is that they forcefully drive home the realization that we must survive or die as a species. (February 25) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Lifton has assembled many of his essays published since 1965 into a coherent whole whose theme is that the future of humanity depends upon the renunciation of dependency on nuclear weapons. No mere idle spectator, Lifton spent years interviewing people who were intimately involved with the Holocaust, with nuclear testing and bombing, and with the My Lai atrocities in Vietnam. He draws together these disaster tales with eloquence and moving power. Despite his obsession with disaster, the distinguished psychiatrist is no purveyor of gloom and his work is, finally, an uplifting declaration that we who are alive today will live to see a better world. Especially worthwhile for the general reader. Sidney Gendin, Philosophy Dept., Eastern Michigan Univ., Ypsilanti (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An unusual moral urgency and intellectual acuity permeate these essays (most previously published) from noted psychiatrist/author Lifton, whose investigation here of catastrophic evil and its implications mirrors his work in such books as The Nazi Doctors, The Broken Connection, Death in Life, etc. Hiroshima, Vietnam, Auschwitz, nuclear winter, totalitarian religious cults, suicide: Lifton devotes one essay or more to each of these horrors, driven, he states in a brief introduction, to ""know how it was possible--given the human potential for evil. . .for us to retain a sense of hope for the future."" His answer lies in the title essay (preceded, as are the others, by an updating note), a speech delivered at the Harvard Divinity School in 1985: ""to commit to the newly precious principle of identifying with the human species and its larger continuity."" Reverberating throughout this collection, which includes in its new material a scathing examination of the ""Star Wars"" defense system and a succinct anti-nuclear manifesto, is the constant reminder of a simple choice: to embrace life, or to hate it; to fall victim to the phenomenon of ""doubling,"" Lifton's term for the psychological mechanism of evil whereby the self divides into two functioning wholes, one performing evil while the other rationalizes, or to face squarely Armageddonist tendencies in society and in oneself, and to commit to ""the flow and continuity of human life."" With their erudite, often subtle argument, Lifton's calls to conscience demand close reading, but they can reward with a deeper, more hopeful understanding of humanity's potential for evil and for good. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
