Weekend Reading
This weekend, I’ll be re-reading portions of Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century by Jonathan Glover.
This book was published in 1999.
Humanity is about the process by which people become able to do terrible things to one another. It is not a cheery book.
Humanity offers insight into how certain ethnic groups or followers of a specific religion become vulnerable to violence. The author contends that violence often follows a process of dehumanization in which targeted people are portrayed as less than human or dangerously alien to prevailing norms.
It was, in part, nastiness directed at Republicans, and some Democrats as well, on a few left-leaning blogs I’ve read that led me to pick up the book again. Anyone who thinks their side of the political debate is benign by nature has it wrong.
I can’t recommend Humanity strongly enough.
Here is the New York Times review of the book.
