Understanding genocide the social psychology of the Holocaust

The Alcoholic Empire examines the prevalence of alcohol in Russian social, economic, religious, and political life. Herlihy looks at how the state, the church, the military, doctors, lay societies, and the czar all tried to battle the problem of overconsumption of alcohol in the late imperial period. Since vodka produced essential government revenue and was a backbone of the state economy, many who fought for a sober Russia believed that the only way to save the country through Revolutionary change. This book traces temperance activity and politics side by side with the end of the tsarist regi.

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"When and why do groups target each other for extermination? How do seemingly normal people become participants in genocide? Why do some individuals come to the rescue of members of targeted groups, while others just passively observe their victimization? And how do perpetrators and bystanders later come to terms with the choices that they made? These questions have long vexed scholars and laypeople alike, and they have not decreased in urgency as we enter the twenty-first century. In this book, prominent social psychologists use the principles derived from contemporary research in their field to try to she light on the behavior of the perpetrators of genocide. The primary focus of this volume is on the Holocaust, or the Jewish Catastrophe of the 1930s an 1940s, but the conclusions reached have relevance for attempts to understand any episode of mass killing. Among the topics covered (and summarized in the Epilogue) are how crises and difidult life conditions might set the stage for violent intergroup conflict; why some groups are more likely than others to be selected as scapegoats; how certain cultural values and beliefs could facilitate the initiation of genocide; the roles of conformity and obedience to authority in shaping behavior; how engaging in violent behavior makes it easier to for one to aggress again; the evidence for a "genocide prone" personality; and how perpetrators deceive themselves about what they have done. The book does not culminate in a grand theory of intergroup violence; instead, it seels to provide the reader with new ways of making sense of the horrors of genocide. In other words, the goal of all of the contributors is to provide us with at least some of the knowledge that we will need to anticipate and prevent future such tragic episodes."
"Foreword: Peter Browning (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)PART I - Becoming a Perpetrator 1. "The Psychology of Bystanders, Perpetrators, and Heroic Helpers", Ervin Staub (University of Massachusetts - Amherst)2. "What is a 'Social-Psychological' Account of Perpetrator Behavior? The Person Versus the Situation in Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners", Leonard S. Newman (University of Illinois at Chicago)3. "Authoritarianism and the Holocaust: Some Cognitive and Affective Implications", Peter Suedfeld and Mark Schaller (University of British Columbia)4. "Perpetrator Behavior as Destructive Obedience: An Evaluation of Stanley Milgram's Perspective, the Most Influential Social-Psychological Approach to the Holocaust", Thomas Blass (University of Maryland Baltimore County)PART II Beyond the Individual: Groups and Collectives ..."
"The Alcoholic Empire examines the prevalence of alcohol in Russian social, economic, religious, and political life. Herlihy looks at how the state, the church, the military, doctors, lay societies, and the czar all tried to battle the problem of overconsumption of alcohol in the late imperial period. Since vodka produced essential government revenue and was a backbone of the state economy, many who fought for a sober Russia believed that the only way to save the country through Revolutionary change. This book traces temperance activity and politics side by side with the end of the tsarist regi."@en