This book provides the scope and complexity of Freud's contributions and emphasizes the wide proliferation of the Lacanian approach. It describes psychoanalytical theories, and is helpful for the readers as a stimulus to independent investigation and critical thought.

"Brute." "Cockroach." "Lice." "Vermin." People often regard members of their own kind as less than human, and use terms like these for those whom they wish to harm, enslave, or exterminate. Dehumanization has made atrocities like the Holocaust, the genocide in Rwanda, and the slave trade possible. But it isn't just a relic of the past. We still find it in war, genocide, xenophobia, and racism. Smith shows that it is a dangerous mistake to think of dehumanization as the exclusive preserve of Nazis, communists, terrorists, Jews, Palestinians, or any other monster of the moment. We are all potential dehumanizers, just as we are all potential objects of dehumanization. The problem of dehumanization is everyone's problem. "Less Than Human" is the first book to illuminate precisely how and why we sometimes think of others as subhuman creatures. It draws on a rich mix of history, evolutionary psychology, biology, anthropology, and philosophy to document the pervasiveness of dehumanization, describe its forms, and explain why we so often resort to it. "Less Than Human" is a powerful and highly original study of the roots of human violence and bigotry, and it as timely as it is relevant.

How should we approach the psychological study of religion, and how relevant is classical psychoanalysis, identified with the writings of Sigmund Freud, to the understanding of religion? Freud's writings on religion have been discussed often and continue to attract attention and debate. Psychoanalysis and Theism starts with an essay by Adolf Grunbaum, one of the world's leading philosophers of science and an incisive critic of Freud's work. Grunbaum looks at Freud's general claims about the psychological mechanisms involved in religion and finds them lacking. Then, in a surprising turn, Grunbaum judges some of Freud's interpretations of concrete religious ideas and practices to be not only cogent, but indispensable. When it comes to the case of the belief in Virgin Birth, Grunbaum finds an Oedipal interpretation to be our only choice. This remarkable essay is the stimulus for a symposium with nine senior scholars, coming from the fields of philosophy, psychology, sociology, and psychoanalysis, who present their critical reflections on how we should study religion, how we should treat Freud's ideas, and what the future directions in psychological research on concrete religious behavior should be. The contributors bring to this effort their varied fields of expertise, from analytical philosophy to experimental psychology. Of special interest are essays which deal with the Virgin Birth doctrine and its possible psychological sources and with the potential for future psychoanalytic studies of faith and ritual. Other essays focus on Freud's conscious and unconscious motivations for studying religion as well as the hidden biases and lacunae found in the social science literature on religious practices. This volume adds a unique combination of critical and knowledgeable voices to the debate on Sigmund Freud's legacy."

Hidden Conversations introduces Robert Langs radical reinterpretation of psychoanalysis by presenting and expanding his ideas in new and accessible ways. It is the first clear account of the theories underlying Langs approach, placing them within the context of the history of psychoanalysis and showing, for example, that Freud nearly discovered the communicative approach in the late 1890s, and that in the 1930s Ferenczi also anticipated the method. David Livingstone Smith illustrates this communicative approach with a wealth of practical detail and clinical examples, including verbatim accounts of communicative psychoanalytical sessions with a commentary on the unconscious processes underlying them.

The Rwandan genocide, the Holocaust, the lynching of African Americans, the colonial slave trade: these are horrific episodes of mass violence spawned from racism and hatred. We like to think that we could never see such evils again-that we would stand up and fight. But something deep in the human psyche-deeper than prejudice itself-leads people to persecute the other: dehumanization, or the human propensity to think of others as less than human. An award-winning author and philosopher, Smith takes an unflinching look at the mechanisms of the mind that encourage us to see someone as less than human. There is something peculiar and horrifying in human psychology that makes us vulnerable to thinking of whole groups of people as subhuman creatures. When governments or other groups stand to gain by exploiting this innate propensity, and know just how to manipulate words and images to trigger it, there is no limit to the violence and hatred that can result. Drawing on numerous historical and contemporary cases and recent psychological research, On Inhumanity is the first accessible guide to the phenomenon of dehumanization. Smith walks readers through the psychology of dehumanization, revealing its underlying role in both notorious and lesser-known episodes of violence from history and current events. In particular, he considers the uncomfortable kinship between racism and dehumanization, where beliefs involving race are so often precursors to dehumanization and the horrors that flow from it. On Inhumanity is bracing and vital reading in a world lurching towards authoritarian political regimes, resurgent white nationalism, refugee crises that breed nativist hostility, and fast-spreading racist rhetoric. The book will open your eyes to the pervasive dangers of dehumanization and the prejudices that can too easily take root within us, and resist them before they spread into the wider world.

A leading scholar explores what it means to dehumanize others-and how and why we do it. "I wouldn't have accepted that they were human beings. You would see an infant who's just learning to smile, and it smiles at you, but you still kill it." So a Hutu man explained to an incredulous researcher, when asked to recall how he felt slaughtering Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994. Such statements are shocking, yet we recognize them; we hear their echoes in accounts of genocides, massacres, and pogroms throughout history. How do some people come to believe that their enemies are monsters, and therefore easy to kill? In Making Monsters David Livingstone Smith offers a poignant meditation on the philosophical and psychological roots of dehumanization. Drawing on harrowing accounts of lynchings, Smith establishes what dehumanization is and what it isn't. When we dehumanize our enemy, we hold two incongruous beliefs at the same time: we believe our enemy is at once subhuman and fully human. To call someone a monster, then, is not merely a resort to metaphor-dehumanization really does happen in our minds. Turning to an abundance of historical examples, Smith explores the relationship between dehumanization and racism, the psychology of hierarchy, what it means to regard others as human beings, and why dehumanizing others transforms them into something so terrifying that they must be destroyed. Meticulous but highly readable, Making Monsters suggests that the process of dehumanization is deeply seated in our psychology. It is precisely because we are all human that we are vulnerable to the manipulations of those trading in the politics of demonization and violence.

Hidden Conversations introduces Robert Langs radical reinterpretation of psychoanalysis by presenting and expanding his ideas in new and accessible ways. It is the first clear account of the theories underlying Langs approach, placing them within the context of the history of psychoanalysis and showing, for example, that Freud nearly discovered the communicative approach in the late 1890s, and that in the 1930s Ferenczi also anticipated the method. David Livingstone Smith illustrates this communicative approach with a wealth of practical detail and clinical examples, including verbatim accounts of communicative psychoanalytical sessions with a commentary on the unconscious processes underlying them.

This collection of essays aims to further the understanding of historical and contemporary geographies of science. It offers a fresh perspective on comparative approaches to scientific knowledge and practice as pursued by geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, and historians of science. The authors explore the formation and changing geographies of scientific centers from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries and critically discuss the designing of knowledge spaces in early museums, in modern laboratories, at world fairs, and in the periphery of contemporary science. They also analyze the interactions between science and the public in Victorian Britain, interwar Germany, and recent environmental policy debates. The book provides a genuine geographical perspective on the production and dissemination of knowledge and will thus be an important point of reference for those interested in the spatial relations of science and associated fields.

The Klaus Tschira Foundation supports diverse symposia, the essence of which is published in this Springer series (www.kts.villa-bosch.de).

This collection of essays aims to further the understanding of historical and contemporary geographies of science. It offers a fresh perspective on comparative approaches to scientific knowledge and practice as pursued by geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, and historians of science. The authors explore the formation and changing geographies of scientific centers from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries and critically discuss the designing of knowledge spaces in early museums, in modern laboratories, at world fairs, and in the periphery of contemporary science. They also analyze the interactions between science and the public in Victorian Britain, interwar Germany, and recent environmental policy debates. The book provides a genuine geographical perspective on the production and dissemination of knowledge and will thus be an important point of reference for those interested in the spatial relations of science and associated fields.

The Klaus Tschira Foundation supports diverse symposia, the essence of which is published in this Springer series (www.kts.villa-bosch.de).

This title is shortlisted for The Best New Writer Category of The British Sports Book Awards 2010. On an overcast April day in 2003, David and James Livingston raced against each other in the 149th Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race. Watched by over seven million people, it was the first time for over a hundred years that brothers had battled against each other in this gladiatorial contest. Only one could be victorious. In "Blood Over Water", David and James tell their stories for the first time, giving an intimate insight into one of our best-loved national sporting occasions, whilst also describing a brotherly relationship tested to breaking point. It is an emotional and searching joint self-portrait that looks at the darker side of sibling rivalry and asks just what you would be willing to sacrifice to achieve your dreams.

Far too ignorant of the histories of the rest of the world, being aware of only the accomplishments of Greece, Rome and Europe, Westerners have been made to believe that their societies represent the most superior examples of civilization. However, the Western value system stems from a misconception that, as in nature, human society too is evolving. The idea derives from the hidden influence of secret societies, who followed the belief in spiritual evolution of the Kabbalah, which taught that history would attain its fulfillment when man would become God, and make his own laws. Therefore, the infamous Illuminati gave its name to the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, which claimed that human progress must abandon "superstition," meaning Christianity, in favor of "reason." Thus the Illuminati succeeded in bringing about the French and American revolutions, which instituted the separation of Church and State, and from that point forward, the Western values of Humanism, seen to include secularism, human rights, democracy and capitalism, have been celebrated as the culmination of centuries of human intellectual evolution. This is the basis of the propaganda which has been used to foster a Clash of Civilizations, where the Islamic world is presented as stubbornly adhering to the anachronistic idea of "theocracy." Where once the spread of Christianity and civilizing the world were used as pretexts for colonization, today a new White Man's Burden makes use of human rights and democracy to justify imperial aggression. However, because, after centuries of decline, the Islamic world is incapable of mobilizing a defense, the Western powers, as part of their age-old strategy of Divide and Conquer, have fostered the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, to both serve as agent-provocateurs and to malign the image of Islam. These sects, known to scholars as Revivalists, opposed the traditions of classical Islamic scholarship in order to create the opportunity to rewrite the laws of the religion to better serve their sponsors. Thus were created the Wahhabi and Salafi sects of Islam, from which were derived the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been in the service of the West ever since. But, the story of the development of these Islamic sects involves the bizarre doctrines and hidden networks of occult secret societies, being based on a Rosicrucian myth of Egyptian Freemasonry, which see the Muslim radicals as inheritors of an ancient mystery tradition of the Middle East which was passed on to the Knights Templar during the Crusades, thus forming the foundation of the legends of the Holy Grail. These beliefs would not only form the cause for the association of Western intelligence agencies with Islamic fundamentalists, but would fundamentally shape much of twentieth century history.