| |||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £1.35
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £1.35, 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.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'Blass does a fine job of weaving together Milgram's life and science, revealing a portrait of a genius who, ironically enough, had real problems with authority.'
--BBC Focus Magazine, April 2009
--BBC Focus Magazine, April 2009
Product Description
This book presents an in-depth portrait of the 20th century scientist who garnered international attention for his Obedience Experiments and for originating the theory of six degrees of separation. Stanley Milgram was one of the most innovative scientists of our time. Creator of the famous Obedience Experiments carried out at Yale in the early 1960s, and originator of the 'six degrees of separation' theory, Milgram continues to be an intriguing figure in psychology and beyond. In this sparkling biography - the first in-depth portrait of Milgram - Thomas Blass captures the colourful exploits and pioneering work of an experimental psychologist who profoundly altered the way we think about human nature.Milgram's experiments, which confirmed that 'normal' people would readily inflict pain on innocent victims at the behest of an authority figure, generated a firestorm of public interest and outrage - proving, as they did, that moral beliefs were far more malleable than previously thought. But he also explored other aspects of social psychology, from information overload to television violence. His work continues to shape the way we live, think, and conduct research today. Blass offers a brilliant portrait of a flamboyant, visionary scientist who revealed the hidden workings of our very social world. In this new paperback edition, Blass offers an after-word connecting Milgram's research to recent events including war crimes, interrogation techniques, and more.New Afterword - in this new paperback edition, Blass offers an afterword connecting Milgram's research to recent events in the US and abroad, including war crimes, interrogation techniques, and more. The enduring interest in Milgram: this scientist's work proved that ordinary people could carry out evil acts without being coerced. His findings are just as relevant today as in the early 1960s when he first conducted his studies, as people draw links between the Obedience Experiments and Abu Ghraib, abuse at Guantanamo, etc.Backlist Potential: the paperback should open up a new market: armchair psychologists, therapists, students, and fans of biography should be interested in this edition. Recent news story: the book was recently at the centre of the well-reported case brought by the GMC against TV psychiatrist Raj Persaud, who was accused of plagiarising "The Man Who Shocked the World". Persaud was subsequently found guilty and struck off.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
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:Hardcover
Milgram is famous for his obediance experiments. This superb biography provides the background to Milgram's interest in thi work, some wonderful details of the series of experiments he did, and his subsequent work. The highlight is the carefully detailed description of the obedience experiments and reactions to them.
Milgram was a very creative sociologist and worked on many other topics, including the famous "six degrees of freedom" experiment where he had people post letters to strangers via folk they already knew. Few academics are as adventurous and creative as Milgram was.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book, as did my teeange sons who usually only read fiction.
Milgram was a very creative sociologist and worked on many other topics, including the famous "six degrees of freedom" experiment where he had people post letters to strangers via folk they already knew. Few academics are as adventurous and creative as Milgram was.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book, as did my teeange sons who usually only read fiction.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
(This review originally appeared in BBC Focus magazine)
In 1961, an advert appeared in a US newspaper asking for volunteers for a scientific study of memory. The study was not what it seemed, however. Those who responded found themselves in lab delivering increasingly strong electric shocks to a man whenever his memory failed him. And 65 per cent of the volunteers carried on increasing the shocks until the screams had been replaced by an ominous silence.
Only once the experiment was over were the volunteers told the truth: the man had been acting throughout. But the experiment had proved its point: that ordinary people could be persuaded to abuse a complete stranger - if they believed they could pass responsibility on to those in authority. It also made its designer, the social psychologist Stanley Milgram, one of the most controversial scientists of the 20th century.
Milgram's notorious study of obedience to authority forms the centrepiece of this outstanding biography - and rightly so, given its continued importance in understanding such horrors as the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. But as author Thomas Blass makes clear, Milgram pioneered other major areas of research, including the famous "Small World" effect, by which everyone is linked to everyone else by around six intermediaries.
Blass does a fine job of weaving together Milgram's life and science, revealing a portrait of a genius who, ironically enough, had real problems with authority.
In 1961, an advert appeared in a US newspaper asking for volunteers for a scientific study of memory. The study was not what it seemed, however. Those who responded found themselves in lab delivering increasingly strong electric shocks to a man whenever his memory failed him. And 65 per cent of the volunteers carried on increasing the shocks until the screams had been replaced by an ominous silence.
Only once the experiment was over were the volunteers told the truth: the man had been acting throughout. But the experiment had proved its point: that ordinary people could be persuaded to abuse a complete stranger - if they believed they could pass responsibility on to those in authority. It also made its designer, the social psychologist Stanley Milgram, one of the most controversial scientists of the 20th century.
Milgram's notorious study of obedience to authority forms the centrepiece of this outstanding biography - and rightly so, given its continued importance in understanding such horrors as the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. But as author Thomas Blass makes clear, Milgram pioneered other major areas of research, including the famous "Small World" effect, by which everyone is linked to everyone else by around six intermediaries.
Blass does a fine job of weaving together Milgram's life and science, revealing a portrait of a genius who, ironically enough, had real problems with authority.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Milgram seemed to share the showmanship of P.T. Barnum and ingenuity of reality show creator Mark Burnett. If Milgram were alive, he might have been a top reality show creator.
Milgram seems most notable not for the results of his experiments but for their conception and content. He hardly modified the approach used by Asch in his conformity experiments, which relied on deception, but he changed the subject to something considerably more striking. The result may have been significant, but think about it: any result would have attracted attention. Comparing the experimental situation with concentration camp situation is what first made the experiment newsworthy. If the result had been that no one or very few shocked, then news could have been generated of how much better behaved Americans are. Or if Germans also didn't shock much, it could have been claimed people nowadays are much better behaved than folks back in World War II. Given the catchy experiment, the results hardly mattered in the sense that the very description of what the experiment was doing would catch people's attention.
Which isn't necessarily bad. Milgram brought social psychology out of relative obscurity. To a good extent, he bailed out psychology in general, whose reputation had been damaged by decades of speculations without much support.
As a situationist, Milgram recognized that our social lives are quite complex. Rather than spend much time theorizing, he experimented. Don't know? Don't invent a reason, go gather facts. It's a measure of just how complex we are socially that even having gathered results, as with the "obedience" experiments, Milgram seemed at a lost to explain what was happening. Blass notes about Milgram's "Obedience to Authority book" that "Milgram's theorizing is the weakest part of the book". Milgram's feeble appeal to cybernetics contrasts sharply with his description of the experiment. Blass also notes that the kind of "obedience" Milgram studied doesn't seem at all sufficient to explain what happened during the Holocaust.
Milgram shouldn't be faulted for the problems with his theorizing. How many psychologists can theorize well? There's still an enormous amount we don't know about ourselves and the way we interact. Milgram's gift seems to have been sensing that and instead finding novel ways to help us to learn about ourselves. Even if the content and results of his experiments are someday forgotten, the spirit of bold experimentation that Milgram brought to social psychology will be of great value. Blass communicates that. So I don't know if Blass is the "undisputed expert" but the book seems well-researched and quite readable.
Milgram seems most notable not for the results of his experiments but for their conception and content. He hardly modified the approach used by Asch in his conformity experiments, which relied on deception, but he changed the subject to something considerably more striking. The result may have been significant, but think about it: any result would have attracted attention. Comparing the experimental situation with concentration camp situation is what first made the experiment newsworthy. If the result had been that no one or very few shocked, then news could have been generated of how much better behaved Americans are. Or if Germans also didn't shock much, it could have been claimed people nowadays are much better behaved than folks back in World War II. Given the catchy experiment, the results hardly mattered in the sense that the very description of what the experiment was doing would catch people's attention.
Which isn't necessarily bad. Milgram brought social psychology out of relative obscurity. To a good extent, he bailed out psychology in general, whose reputation had been damaged by decades of speculations without much support.
As a situationist, Milgram recognized that our social lives are quite complex. Rather than spend much time theorizing, he experimented. Don't know? Don't invent a reason, go gather facts. It's a measure of just how complex we are socially that even having gathered results, as with the "obedience" experiments, Milgram seemed at a lost to explain what was happening. Blass notes about Milgram's "Obedience to Authority book" that "Milgram's theorizing is the weakest part of the book". Milgram's feeble appeal to cybernetics contrasts sharply with his description of the experiment. Blass also notes that the kind of "obedience" Milgram studied doesn't seem at all sufficient to explain what happened during the Holocaust.
Milgram shouldn't be faulted for the problems with his theorizing. How many psychologists can theorize well? There's still an enormous amount we don't know about ourselves and the way we interact. Milgram's gift seems to have been sensing that and instead finding novel ways to help us to learn about ourselves. Even if the content and results of his experiments are someday forgotten, the spirit of bold experimentation that Milgram brought to social psychology will be of great value. Blass communicates that. So I don't know if Blass is the "undisputed expert" but the book seems well-researched and quite readable.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Historical > Social & Urban History
- Books > Biography > Medical, Legal & Social Sciences > Psychology
- Books > Health, Family & Lifestyle > Medical & Healthcare Practitioners > Other Branches of Medicine > Psychiatry
- Books > Health, Family & Lifestyle > Psychology & Psychiatry > History & Philosophy > History
- Books > Health, Family & Lifestyle > Psychology & Psychiatry > Social & Developmental Psychology > Social
- Books > History > Cultural History
- Books > Science & Nature > Medicine
- Books > Science & Nature > Reference > Psychology & Psychiatry
- Books > Scientific, Technical & Medical
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Cultural Studies > History of Ideas
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.
|
