- Paperback: 476 pages
- Publisher: Yale University Press (11 Aug 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0300087152
- ISBN-13: 978-0300087154
- Product Dimensions: 19.7 x 12.8 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 392,453 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £1.55
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century (Yale Nota Bene) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £1.55, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
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.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
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
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 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
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.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
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
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
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
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
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
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
