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1
During the Nuremberg trials, Dr. Leon Goldensohn–a psychiatrist for the U.S. Army–monitored the mental health of two dozen German leaders charged with carrying out genocide. These recorded conversations have gone largely unexamined for more than fifty years, until Robert Gellately–one of the premier historians of Nazi Germany–made them available to the public in this remarkable collection.Here are interviews with the likes of Hans Frank, Hermann Goering, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Joachim von Ribbentrop–the highest ranking Nazi officials in the Nuremberg jails. Here too are interviews with... more During the Nuremberg trials, Dr. Leon Goldensohn–a psychiatrist for the U.S. Army–monitored the mental health of two dozen German leaders charged with carrying out genocide. These recorded conversations have gone largely unexamined for more than fifty years, until Robert Gellately–one of the premier historians of Nazi Germany–made them available to the public in this remarkable collection.Here are interviews with the likes of Hans Frank, Hermann Goering, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Joachim von Ribbentrop–the highest ranking Nazi officials in the Nuremberg jails. Here too are interviews with lesser-known officials essential to the inner workings of the Third Reich. Candid and often shockingly truthful, The Nuremberg Interviews is a profound addition to our understanding of the Nazi mind and mission. less 
Daniel PickThis book is based on the notes of the psychiatrist Leon Goldensohn who was with the US Army at Nuremberg. I chose it because it typifies a literature that emerged immediately after the war at the international military tribunal in Germany. I wanted to highlight the role the “psy” professions – psychoanalysis, psychiatry and psychology – played at Nuremberg, which followed on from that earlier... (Source)
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2
This book is something new in psychoanalytical exposition—both in its subject matter and its form of presentation. It attempts to convey, in everyday language understandable to the layman, some of the unconscious mental processes which underlie the feelings and action of normal, adult men and women.
The characteristic feature of human psychology is the intense and continual interplay of the impulses of love on the one hand and hatred and agression on the other. Joan Riviere opens this joint study with an analysis of hate, greed, and aggression, and in the second section... more This book is something new in psychoanalytical exposition—both in its subject matter and its form of presentation. It attempts to convey, in everyday language understandable to the layman, some of the unconscious mental processes which underlie the feelings and action of normal, adult men and women.
The characteristic feature of human psychology is the intense and continual interplay of the impulses of love on the one hand and hatred and agression on the other. Joan Riviere opens this joint study with an analysis of hate, greed, and aggression, and in the second section Melanie Klein talks about the forces of love, guilt, and reparation. Tracing the impulses in question back to their origins in infancy, the authors point out many features of adult mental life which evidence the persistence of earlier modes of thinking. Then they discuss some of the "infinitely various, subtle and complicated adaptations" by means of which each individual tries, all his life, to keep a balance between the life-brining and the destructive elements of his nature in order to achieve the maximum of security and gratification. less Daniel PickMelanie Klein was a follower of Sigmund Freud who settled in London in the 1920s and became highly influential within – and eventually beyond – British psychoanalysis, as well as controversial. Indeed, her ideas prompted debates at the British Psychoanalytical Society in the 1940s that are often known by the shorthand of “the controversial discussions”. (Source)
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3
Wilhelm Reich, Vincent R. Carfagno | 4.01
In this classic study, Reich provides insight into the phenomenon of fascism, which continues to ravage the international community in ways great and small.
Drawing on his medical experiences with men and women of various classes, races, nations, and religious beliefs, Reich refutes the still generally held notion that fascism is a specific characteristic of certain nationalities or a political party ideology that is imposed on innocent people by means of force or political maneuvers.
"Fascism is only the organized political expression of the structure of the average... more In this classic study, Reich provides insight into the phenomenon of fascism, which continues to ravage the international community in ways great and small.
Drawing on his medical experiences with men and women of various classes, races, nations, and religious beliefs, Reich refutes the still generally held notion that fascism is a specific characteristic of certain nationalities or a political party ideology that is imposed on innocent people by means of force or political maneuvers.
"Fascism is only the organized political expression of the structure of the average man's character. It is the basic emotional civilization and its mechanistic-mystical conception of life."―Wilhelm Reich
Responsibility for the elimination of fascism thus results with the masses of average people who might otherwise support and champion it. less Daniel PickOne of his key suggestions is that sexuality and politics could be bound together in complex and often disguised ways, and that a huge amount of libido was directed or, as he would have seen it, horrifically misdirected into fascism. Something was “played out” in politics that had to do with very deep frustrations. I think Reich had a strong belief that sexual liberation might lead to greater... (Source)
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4
Freud's religious unbeliefs are too easily dismissed as the standard scientific rationalism of the twentieth-century intellectual, yet he scorned the high-minded humanism of his contemporaries. In Mass Psychology and Analysis of the 'I' he explores the notion of 'mass-psychology' - his findings would prove all too prophetic in the years that followed. Writings such as A Religious Experience and The Future of an Illusion continue earlier work on the essential savagery of the civilized mind, and Moses the Man and Monotheistic Religion excavates the roots of religion and racism, which he... more Freud's religious unbeliefs are too easily dismissed as the standard scientific rationalism of the twentieth-century intellectual, yet he scorned the high-minded humanism of his contemporaries. In Mass Psychology and Analysis of the 'I' he explores the notion of 'mass-psychology' - his findings would prove all too prophetic in the years that followed. Writings such as A Religious Experience and The Future of an Illusion continue earlier work on the essential savagery of the civilized mind, and Moses the Man and Monotheistic Religion excavates the roots of religion and racism, which he concludes are inextricably intertwined.
This remarkable collection reveals Freud not only at his most radically pessimistic, but also at his most personally courageous - engaging with his own adherences, his own antecedents, his own identity. less Daniel PickPeople often think of psychoanalysis as a theory of the individual – a lot of Freud’s early ideas and writing does indeed emerge from his struggle to make sense of the individual patients he treats. But there is also this other dimension, which is about groups and institutions. Indeed, some of Freud’s papers read like stories about the problems of group hatred, loyalty and love within the... (Source)
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5
Originally appearing as a series of articles in The New Yorker, Hannah Arendt’s authoritative and stunning report on the trial of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann sparked a flurry of debate upon its publication. This revised edition includes material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendt’s postscript directly addressing the controversy that arose over her account. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence, Eichmann in Jerusalem is as shocking as it is informative—an unflinching look at one of the most unsettling and unsettled issues of the... more Originally appearing as a series of articles in The New Yorker, Hannah Arendt’s authoritative and stunning report on the trial of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann sparked a flurry of debate upon its publication. This revised edition includes material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendt’s postscript directly addressing the controversy that arose over her account. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence, Eichmann in Jerusalem is as shocking as it is informative—an unflinching look at one of the most unsettling and unsettled issues of the twentieth century that remains hotly debated to this day. less 
Lucas MoralesI was introduced to the book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt via Ian Shapiro’s Yale Open Courseware course The Moral Foundations of Political Science. This dramatically changed my outlook on the usual career path for graduates from my university that predominantly went into the defence industry. I am now perhaps overly conscious (maybe to a fault) that... (Source)
David BellPolitical philosopher Arendt sees the work of the Nazis as the inevitable result of colonialism and industrialisation. (Source)
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