Overview

A revelatory look at why we dehumanize each other, with stunning examples from world history as well as today's headlines 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.

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Peter Lerman is a narrator from the heart of New York City: Brooklyn born and raised. Manhattan and Brooklyn were suffused with the flavors and sounds of the entire world. He tasted it all and heard it all. When you come of age in NYC, nothing is foreign. When you hear a low grumble in his voice on occasion, it is authentic. His first wife told him that he loved her not nearly as much as he loved the sound of his own voice. This made him wonder if other people might love the sound of his voice as well. And so, a narrator was born. Also, an amateur thespian, a trade show presenter, a lecturer, an off-key cabaret singer, and an inveterate teller of jokes one does not tell in mixed company. Peter has been a professional photographer in New York City, owned a model and talent management company, and knocked around from Brooklyn to Manhattan and back again only to wind up in Connecticut. His breath control is fabulous because he is also a board certified respiratory therapist. He has appeared onstage as Horace Vandergelder in Hello Dolly, Gangster #2 in Kiss Me Kate, Bobby Gould in Speed-the-Plow, the Governor of Texas in Best Little Whorehouse . . ., Jonathan Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace, and Lenny in Rumors. The voice is deep and resonant. Sometimes formal, sometimes not. Never stale. Always eminently listenable. David Livingstone Smith is a professor of philosophy at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine. He has written or edited eight books, including Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others, which won the 2012 Anisfield-Wolf award for nonfiction. His work has been translated into seven languages. David is an interdisciplinary scholar, whose publications are cited not only by other philosophers, but also by historians, legal scholars, psychologists, and anthropologists. He has been featured in several prime-time television documentaries, is often interviewed and cited in the national and international media, and was a guest at the 2012 G20 economic summit, where he spoke about dehumanization and mass violence.

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