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Library | Material Type | Shelf Number | Child Count | Shelf Location | Status | Item Holds |
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Searching... Central | Paperback | 304.663 KRESSEL 1996 | 1 | Non-fiction Collection | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Searching... Science | Book | 304.663 K884MA, 1996 | 1 | Stacks | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Searching... Science | Book | 364.151 K884M 1996 | 1 | Stacks | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Searching... South | Book | 364.151 KRESSEL N | 1 | Non-fiction Collection | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Summary
Rarely does a book emerge that is a wake-up call to the world. Mass Hate is such a masterpiece. It explores why the brutality of humankind has erupted and flowed more expansively in the twentieth century than ever before. More importantly, this monumental work offers specific recommendations on how to stem this bloody global tide of slaughter, terror, and genocide--so that the twenty-first century does not bring more of the same, or worse.Neil Kressel--a respected authority on the psychology of international affairs, genocide, and terrorism--meticulously investigates why in the past eight decades mass hatred has reached genocidal proportions throughout the world. Genocide has occurred so often and blood has gushed so freely that one might consider the urge to kill one's neighbor an inborn characteristic of our species. Furthermore, the power to wreak bloody havoc on innocent civilians has become not only the sport of "soldiers," but of terrorists as well. In light of this, Kressel examines the motives for terrorist acts, specifically those of ultraextremist Muslims. Given the possibility of nuclear devices falling into the hands of terrorists in the next century, we must now come to grips with the epidemic spread of hatred and violence. Our only hope lies in understanding the human impulse to hate and the forces that transform that impulse into brutish action. In his quest for a thorough understanding of what ignites mass slaughter, Kressel probes beyond the facile, stock answers that traditionally explain such horrors. He plumbs the depths of history, psychology, and political science to derive his own theories of what propels an average citizen to raise the machete to groups of innocent women and children and slash them to death, or to pull the lever to release pernicious gases upon defenseless people, and to do it again and again.The time has come for us all to join Dr. Kressel in investigating the mind of the hater and to learn to identify the circumstances that foment genocide and terrorism. By recognizing their antecedents, Dr. Kressel proposes ways to control, if not defeat, these twin forces of evil. The breathtaking sweep and depth of this trenchant work promises to make it a classic.In his investigation, he focuses on:
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In an illuminating psychosocial inquiry into the roots of mass hatred, Kressel, who chairs the psychology department at William Paterson College of New Jersey, focuses on four examples of the eruption of murderous bigotry. In Germany, the Nazi genocide of the Jews was abetted by millions of patriotic accomplices who gave their enthusiastic support to Hitler, though aware of his willingness to launch a new war and of his hatred of Jews. In the former Yugoslavia, the drive to build a Greater Serbiaborn of grandiose nationalism and memories of WWII atrocities against Serbsin 1992 led Bosnian Serb soldiers to rape, torture and murder thousands of Muslim and Croat women. The 1993 bombing of Manhattan's World Trade Center by Muslim terrorists drew strength from a fundamentalist ideology that demonizes the West. In Rwanda in 1994, Hutu extremists slaughtered half a million Tutsi and moderate Hutu, motivated by a class-based hatred that, according to Kressel, evolved well before the arrival of colonizing Europeans. Kressel explores how powerful leaders, playing upon an us-against-them mentality, can transform law-abiding people into perpetrators of atrocities. The best bulwark against mass hate, he stresses, is a democratic political culture based on free media and human rights. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Choice Review
Kressel, whose previous writings have appeared in Political Psychology, Journal of Social Psychology, and American Journal of Sociology, among many others, has produced an insightful study of the cultural variants that underlie collective tendencies toward mass hate and genocide. The author reaches his conclusions through a painstakingly constructed analysis of the horrifying episodes of mass hate and genocide in Rwanda, Bosnia, Nazi Germany, and the Middle East, as well as the acts of terrorism that have recently occurred within the US. By building on detailed criticisms of the social psychological literature, Kressel makes his case that mass hate is a collective phenomenon that can erupt with the congruence of several factors. These include increasing marginalization of minority groups, collective perceptions of injustice, conditions of economic depravity, but most important, absence of shared political power. Many will question Kressel's conclusion that the best protection against mass hate remains the establishment of democratic societies and the protection of individual rights. However, such claims are trivial in light of the wealth of evidence the authors provides. Detailed references, endnotes, and thorough index. All levels. T. M. Chester Texas A&M University
Table of Contents
1 The Hater's Mind | p. 1 |
2 Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia | p. 13 |
3 Muslim Extremists in New York | p. 47 |
4 Rwandathe Legacy of Inequality | p. 87 |
5 Why People Followed Hitler | p. 119 |
6 The Power of the Situation | p. 169 |
7 The Personality of the Perpetrator | p. 211 |
8 Can Anything Be Done? | p. 247 |
Notes | p. 283 |
Index | p. 317 |