A definitive account of the psychology of zealotry, from a National Book Award winner and a leading authority on the nature of cults, political absolutism, and mind control.
Media track record: His previous book, The Climate Swerve, was reviewed in the Washington Post and excerpted in the New York Times. Lifton has been a contributor to the New York Times for over fifty years. He has appeared on many NPR shows, including Fresh Air. He has appeared in many TV and feature documentaries. He has been interviewed by both Stephen Spielberg's team for a Discovery Channel show on the Japanese suicide Aum Shinrikyo and also for a film by Errol Morris. His definition of cults is used by the hugely popular podcast CULTS in the opening of their show. Credentials: He is one of the world's leading authorities on thought control and cult violence. He taught and practiced at Yale, Harvard, and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He is one of the great practitioners of psycho-history, the combination of psychiatry and history. His ideas are often cited in articles and essays. He has been a prolific voice on Trump's psychological suitability to be president. Blurbs/endorsements: James Carroll, Martin Amis, Bill McKibben, Judith Herman, Sherry Turkle, James Gilligan
A definitive account of the psychology of zealotry, from a National Book Award winner and a leading authority on the nature of cults, political absolutism, and mind control In this unique and timely volume Robert Jay Lifton, the National Book Award-winning psychiatrist, historian, and public intellectual proposes a radical idea: that the psychological relationship between extremist political movements and fanatical religious cults may be much closer than anyone thought. Exploring the most extreme manifestations of human zealotry, Lifton highlights an array of leaders--from Mao to Hitler to the Japanese apocalyptic cult leader Shōkō Asahara to Donald Trump--who have sought the control of human minds and the ownership of reality. Lifton has spent decades exploring psychological extremism. His pioneering concept of the "Eight Deadly Sins" of ideological totalism--originally devised to identify "brainwashing" (or "thought reform") in political movements--has been widely quoted in writings about cults, and embraced by members and former members of religious cults seeking to understand their experiences.