On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society

On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and SocietyThe revised and updated edition of Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's modern classic, hailed by the Washington Post as "an illuminating account of how soldiers learn to kill and how they live with the experiences of having killed." The good news is that most soldiers are loath to kill. But armies have developed sophisticated ways of overcoming this instinctive aversion. And contemporary civilian society, particularly the media, replicates the army's

The revised and updated edition of Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's modern classic, hailed by the Washington Post as "an illuminating account of how soldiers learn to kill and how they live with the experiences of having killed."
The good news is that most soldiers are loath to kill. But armies have developed sophisticated ways of overcoming this instinctive aversion. And contemporary civilian society, particularly the media, replicates the army's conditioning techniques, and, according to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's thesis, is responsible for our rising rate of murder among the young.

Upon its initial publication, On Killing was hailed as a landmark study of the techniques the military uses to overcome the powerful reluctance to kill, of how killing affects soldiers, and of the societal implications of escalating violence. Now, Grossman has updated this classic work to include information on 21st-century military conflicts, recent trends in crime, suicide bombings, school shootings, and more. The result is a work certain to be relevant and important for decades to come.
"Powerfully argued...Full of arresting observations and insights." --New York Times

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Published: 06/01/2009
ISBN: 9780316040938
Pages: 377
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.10h x 5.40w x 1.20d

Review Citations: Scitech Book News 12/01/2009 pg. 177