Hiroshima and nuclear war. Genocide and the Holocaust. Mass death and human survival. Perhaps no psychohistorian has examined more closely the darkness that all too often has embraced humanity in the twentieth century than Robert Jay Lifton. Yet despite this focus on the dark side of humanity, or perhaps because of it, Lifton has found hope in the resiliency of the human self (The Protean Self 1993). The above collections constitute a Festschrift of sorts in honor of Lifton and his influence. Both volumes have been expertly edited by Charles Strozier and Michael Flynn, Co-Director and Associate Director of Programs, respectively, for the Center on Violence and Human Survival, founded and directed by Lifton himself. The collections best honor Lifton by furthering the work of his Center through their interdisciplinary explorations of 20th-century mass violence as well as through their clarion call for nonviolence in this all too brutal world.
David Redles (Wed,) studied this question.