Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize With a new preface by the author In his most powerful and important book, renowned psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton presents a brilliant analysis of the crucial role that German doctors played in the Nazi genocide. Now updated with a new preface, The Nazi Doctors remains the definitive work on the Nazi medical atrocities, a chilling exposé of the banality of evil at its epitome, and a sobering reminder of the darkest side of (...) human nature. (shrink)

Scott Gordon provides a magisterial review of the historical development of the social sciences from their beginnings in renaissance Italy to the present day.

This elegantly written book explores the history of ideas in Europe from the revolutions of 1848 to the beginning of the First World War. Broader than a straight survey, deeper and richer than a textbook, this work seeks to place the reader in the position of an informed eavesdropper on the intellectual conversations of the past. J. W. Burrow first outlines the intellectual context of the mid-nineteenth century, using ideas taken from physics, social evolution, and social Darwinism, and anxieties about (...) modernity and personal identity, to explore the impact of science and social thought on European intellectual life. The discussion encompasses powerful and fashionable concepts in evolution, art, myth, the occult, and the unconscious mind; the rise of the great cities of Berlin, Paris, and London; and the work of literary writers, philosophers, and composers. Most of the great intellectual figures of the age—and many of the lesser known—populate the book, among them Mill, Bakunin, Nietzsche, Bergson, Renan, Pater, Proust, Clough, Flaubert, Wagner, and Wilde. The author wears his erudition lightly, and this distinguished book will be both entertaining and accessible to scholars, students, and general readers alike. (shrink)

Where do humans come from? How did they evolve? How did different races come into existence? The quest for modern human origins has both fascinated and divided people for centuries. Theories of race and questions of whether humans can be categorized in different species have caused polarization and discord in the sciences throughout history, and theories currently in vogue may have as much to do with contemporary cultural politics as with science. Race and Human Evolution is a far-ranging account by (...) leading researchers in the field that describes the latest scientific evidence and the conflicting theories about human evolution. Milford Wolpoff and Rachel Caspari describe the “Eve” or “Out-of-Africa” theory, which holds that all living people are the descendants of a single common ancestor (“Eve”) who began a new species of humanity in Africa some 200,000 years ago and whose progeny spread throughout the world, giving rise to the different human races. The authors show that the evidence of the fossil record and genetic data support “Multiregionalism,” which posits that for some two million years human populations have been entwined in a network of widespread peoples who evolved together because they met and interbred, giving the races today many ancestors, not a single common one. Race and Human Evolution shows how the debate over the “Eve” theory reflects a long history of theories about human origins and race that has been fraught with social and political implications. Race and human evolution have become tangled during some of the most important eras in our history: European colonizations, which sparked questions over the humanity of indigenous natives, and the slavery issue and whether Jefferson's claims of humanity and quality for all people applied to slaves. While Darwinism, the discovery of Neanderthals, and Mendel's genetic theories combined to give us modern paleoanthropology, the eugenics movement and even Nazism also sprang from these ideas.The debate now raging cannot free itself of this background. Certain to be controversial but also to illuminate an argument that has persisted for centuries and which persists in some of today's most inflammatory social and political issues, Race and Human Evolution provides an authoritative account of the science and the scientists behind the controversy over the origin of humanity and its racial differences. (shrink)