Human Destructiveness
1972
First Published
3.61
Average Rating
183
Number of Pages
Originally published in 1972, this fully revised edition was published in 1991 and provides a classic study of humanity’s capacity for evil. The human species is capable of the most appalling cruelty. Why is this and where does our capacity for such destructiveness come from? In Human Destructiveness, Anthony Storr explores these important questions. In seeking to shed light on such brutal phenomena as genocide, racial conflict and other large-scale manifestations of violence, he cautions against easy extrapolations from individual behaviour to the behaviour of groups and nations, though he offers illuminating discussions of aggressive personality disorders, sadomasochism and the mechanisms of paranoid delusion. Most provocatively, he locates the propensity for mass outbreaks of cruelty in the ‘to be able to see fellow human beings as wholly evil requires an imaginative capacity not found in other species.’ Combining wide scholarship, humane intelligence and a graceful style, Human Destructiveness provides an illuminating study of some of the darkest corners of the human psyche.
Avg Rating
3.61
Number of Ratings
115
5 STARS
23%
4 STARS
37%
3 STARS
26%
2 STARS
9%
1 STARS
6%
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Author
Anthony Storr
Author · 12 books
Anthony Storr was an English psychiatrist and author. He was a child who was to endure the typical trauma of early 20th century UK boarding schools. He was educated at Winchester, Christ's College, the University of Cambridge and Westminster Hospital. He qualified as a doctor in 1944, and subsequently specialized in psychiatry. Storr grew up to be kind and insightful, yet, as his obituary states, he was "no stranger to suffering" and was himself allegedly prone to the frequent bouts of depression his mother had. Today, Anthony Storr is known for his psychoanalytical portraits of historical figures.
