In the modern technological war, victims are distant and responsibility is fragmented. The scientists making the atomic bomb thought they were only providing a weapon: how it was used was the responsibility of society. The people who dropped the bomb were only obeying orders. The machinery of political decision-taking was so complex that no one among the politicians was unambiguously responsible. No one thought of themselves as causing the horrors of Hiroshima. One topic of the book is tribalism: about how, in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia, people who once lived together became trapped into mutual fear and hatred. Another topic is how, in Stalin's Russia, Mao's China and in Cambodia, systems of belief made atrocities possible. The analysis of Nazism looks at the emotionally powerful combination of tribalism and belief which enabled people to do things otherwise unimaginable. Drawing on accounts of participants, victims and observers, Jonathan Glover shows that different atrocities have common patterns which suggest weak points in our psychology: only by looking closely at the monsters inside us can we undertake the project of caging and taming them.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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An ominously dark cover reflects the mood for this sobering and intermittently brilliant appraisal of 20th-century morality or, to be fatuous, of men behaving very badly. Jonathan Glover, author of Causing Death and Saving Lives, argues that the 20th century has been less punctuated than characterised by atrocities because of rampant technology and the disappearance of an external moral force to guide people. Interweaving readable narrative with skilful analysis, Glover considers the major human disasters of the period, from the regimes of Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot to its defining events. The two world wars, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam, Rwanda and Yugoslavia receive painstaking autopsies, culminating in an appraisal of Nazi Germany, which, though it slaughtered fewer people than Stalin's Soviet Union, and proportionately fewer than PolPot's Khmer Rouge, was unique in its ruthless use of the instrument of government to enforce its evil.
Glover's approach to history is based on anecdotal and eyewitness accounts, refreshingly clear of statistical marshland, and while he does not shy from unequivocal condemnation, he shows wise restraint in a volume that could as easily have been entitled "Hindsight." Physical distance from battle leading to emotional detachment, distillation of Social Darwinism, "positive hatred", brutalising removal of dignity to render the victim no more than an animal, "cold jokes", lack of individual responsibility and the cult of tribalism are all identified as having contributed to a spirit of partisan malevolence to which, for Glover, the phrase "never again" is the only adequate ethical response. "Where were the philosophers?" runs the refrain of his battle-cry. Watching inactive and inadequate, like most of the rest of us, is the depressingly recurrent reply. The darkness is not unremitting; it is consciously entitled Humanity, and Glover is an optimist, albeit with grave concerns, who strives to highlight individual acts of kindness that transcend circumstance to offer hope for the future. After 10 years of research and writing, he has produced a stirringly intelligent and urgent lament for an arduous century, pockmarked by those who sought to dominate it, and unable to forget as selectively as it remembers. -- David Vincent --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Jonathan Glover is Director of the Centre of Medical Law and Ethics at King's College, London. His previous books inlcude Responsibility, Casuing Death and and Saving Lives, What Sort of People should There Be? and I: Philosophy and Psychology of Personal Identity. He chaired a European Commision Working Party on the ethics of assisted reproduction. He is currently working on philosophical issues in psychiatry.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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In Europe at the start of the twentieth century most people accepted the authority of morality. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
In Europe at the start of the twentieth century most people accepted the authority of morality. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Reviews, be they positive or negative, can often abound with distressing hyperbole. There is a risk of this review being no different.
As such I will make one sentance and ask you to trust it: 'I am not inclined to hyperbole' - in the hope that you will do the same with the next. Jonathan Glover's 'Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century' is quite simply one of the most important books that has been written, in my view, in the last 100 years. Expansive, powerful, and enormously and appropriately distressing, Jonathan Glover is writing less of a history, than using historical narratives as a medium for a philosophical and humanist project that should be valued by anyone who is moved against acts of cruelty and inhumanity in the world. Glover seeks to examine no less of a question than how humanity's often immense immorality is possible, and what must change, or be avoided, to prevent repetitions of such immorality. He provides a deep, complex and thoroughly human account of human tragedies, that is simultaneously moving and enlightening. He traces a vast account of human cruelty, from War Crimes in Vietnam, to British colonial oppression, from Fascist and Stalinist totalitarianism to ethnic cleansing, and seeks to explain it, and help us learn from it.
This is an accessible and moving intellectual work. It is a must read for anyone concerned about immorality, inhumanity and evil in the world. I cannot recommend it more highly to everyone. It is the most important and impressive book I have ever read.
As such I will make one sentance and ask you to trust it: 'I am not inclined to hyperbole' - in the hope that you will do the same with the next. Jonathan Glover's 'Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century' is quite simply one of the most important books that has been written, in my view, in the last 100 years. Expansive, powerful, and enormously and appropriately distressing, Jonathan Glover is writing less of a history, than using historical narratives as a medium for a philosophical and humanist project that should be valued by anyone who is moved against acts of cruelty and inhumanity in the world. Glover seeks to examine no less of a question than how humanity's often immense immorality is possible, and what must change, or be avoided, to prevent repetitions of such immorality. He provides a deep, complex and thoroughly human account of human tragedies, that is simultaneously moving and enlightening. He traces a vast account of human cruelty, from War Crimes in Vietnam, to British colonial oppression, from Fascist and Stalinist totalitarianism to ethnic cleansing, and seeks to explain it, and help us learn from it.
This is an accessible and moving intellectual work. It is a must read for anyone concerned about immorality, inhumanity and evil in the world. I cannot recommend it more highly to everyone. It is the most important and impressive book I have ever read.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
This book is not an enjoyable read, but it is a necessary one. Jonathan Glover's method, tying together humanity's worst episodes in the twentieth century, gives a far more positive framework than the subject matter would suggest. But the main benefit is the examination of the episodes themselves - from Mao to firebombing Germany to the Cuban missile crisis - all beautifully illustrated by first hand accounts. Beyond the overall lessons he attempts to draw, I was left with a greater understanding of events such as the personal impact of Mao's cultural revolution. I found the examination of the Nazi philosophy to be the most telling part of the book, giving the lie to labelling amateur rabble-rousers like Joerg Haider as Nazis, and exposing the brutal nihilism at the root of humanity's blackest moment, not just of this century, but of any century. Uncomfortable, but compelling.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Glover's "Humanity" is a highly accessible and equally balanced work on the history and morality of the 20th Century. Even though the book is ambitious in scope, Glover gives an accomplished account of the 20th century psychology that led to the Nazi genocide, Stalinism, Mao's Cultural Revolution & Cambodia's Killing Fields, amongst other 20th century atrocities.
Although part one is a little intense and heavy going, particularly to readers unfamiliar with the work of Nietzsche, this does not detract from the rest of the book which is both immensely readable and gripping.
Glover has attempted a unique melange of humanity, morality and historical fact and succeeded. Brilliant. Recommended.
Although part one is a little intense and heavy going, particularly to readers unfamiliar with the work of Nietzsche, this does not detract from the rest of the book which is both immensely readable and gripping.
Glover has attempted a unique melange of humanity, morality and historical fact and succeeded. Brilliant. Recommended.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
One for the Home Book Shelf
I'm one of those people who are often intrigued by the titles andpresentations of books. I am not a philosophy or a history student but iwas breath-taken by this book. Read more
Published on 26 April 2004 by Mr. M. Hameed
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deserves to be a classic
If you have ever watched TV news, listened to the radio, or read any book about the terrible things people do to each other, any wondered 'Why?', this book is for you. Read more
Published on 23 July 2001 by peterloader@hotmail.com
5.0 out of 5 stars
Darkness and Hope
While a book should not judged by it's cover, the very darkness of the edition gives valuable insight into what lies between the covers. Read more
Published on 1 Feb 2001
3.0 out of 5 stars
This book ought to be called a history of 20th C. depravity
In many ways this isn't a book about Humanity at all is rather a jog trot through the very worse of the 20th Century. Read more
Published on 17 Feb 2000
5.0 out of 5 stars
An uncomfortable read, but very readable...
The review in 'The Economist' caught my attention. The breadth of the inhumanites of the 20th century is dismaying, but the author covers many of them with an even-handed and... Read more
Published on 2 Jan 2000 by jwp@aloha.net
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