Rating: 
Summary: The end justifies the means
Review: Glover describes the ethical and moral absues of the 20th century by finding common themes - rather than chronological ones - to describe the process through which so many crimes were committed. Ideology and blind faithfulness to ideas are major culprits in the century borne out of the enlightenment. In some ways he approahes the explanations of the Frankfurt School (Adorno, Horkheimer) in the analysis of reaso extending beyond the borders of the humane. There are also sevarl quotations from important writers and social critics of the century. I find the selections from Solzhenitsyn most compelling, not least because his Gulag archipelago signalled to the Western European maoists and communists that scientific human organization theories are dangerous. I also recommend reckless Minds by Mark Lilla, who examines similar ideas, though, from the point of view of the intellectuals that too often were blinded by the rationality of the ideas of tyrants. excellent and worthwhile book.
Rating:
Summary: An immoral history
Review: Glover's book travels some well-worn ground but in a way that cleans the moral mirror and forces the reader to take a long, hard look at the dangerous steps, often baby steps, that have preceded horrific events. I appreciated the way Glover's writing reached across the lines of various disciplines, not in a pretentious way, but so as to demonstrate that all of the ways we have learned to think about human behaviour must be mobilized to look ourselves in the face. This book breathes depth into the title Chris Browning chose for his groundbreaking work, _Ordinary Men_. A disturbing but stimulating book.
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Summary: an exceptional and important book
Review: Humanity, though not perfect, is an exceptional book. To be sure, Glover's writing, particularly in the early going, does come across as superficial, almost journalistic. But further into reading "Humanity," Glover's exposition becomes much more thought provoking and persuasive. It is important to note that "Humanity" is not a work of philosophical analysis. Although Glover does tackle some philosophical themes - such as the role philosophy played in the causation of the Nazi experiment, among others - "Humanity" is mostly concerned with historical presentation. And with this goal in mind, Glover does a decent job encapsulating and synthesizing the major events and schools of thought that have profoundly influenced or changed our moral outlook during 20th century. I think "Humanity" is a book everyone should read. Some of the issues and events discussed in "Humanity" may seem obvious to some. However, if necessary, it is important to revisit these topics again. Glover describes in particularly devastating, and at times graphic, fashion the horrendous consequences of unfettered nationalism, tribalism and religious extremism. Moreover, Glover goes into detail about how people who perpetrated some of the worse atrocities of the recent century often utilized "cold jokes" and a "hardened persona" to fend off any feelings of empathy toward the people they were victimizing. Inspite of the Glover's shortcomings, which are relatively minor, I think these are lessons all of humanity should learn from and I fully recommend "Humanity."
Rating: 
Summary: WOW, the obvious!
Review: If you want to read a 400 page book that will state and re-state obvious truths that any thinking person has reached considering man's inhumanity to man, then buy this book! It does have some impressive journalistic history of genocides, and correctly places Maoist China in there unlike many such works, but it is very repetitive and though Glover is supposed to be a philosopher one will find nothing ethically challenging here (did you know genocide is wrong? DUH).
Rating: 
Summary: Philosophy Meets History
Review: Jonathan Glover focuses on the role of the individual's beliefs and actions in creating history. He rejects the idea of an objective moral law, claiming that such belief yields a "naive," "disastrous" division between morality and practical consequences. But he also fears a slide into amoralism. He advocates "humanized ethics" as an optimistic alternative that more accurately reflects our psychological complexity. He does not fully describe what the specific rules might be or how we might achieve consensus on them. But he clearly identifies the "moral resources" of sympathy and respect upon which he says we should base our "moral identities" and our moral theories. Alienation from the moral resources contributes to the capacity for cruelty. Glover distinguishes between emotional insensibility conceived as a means to an end, that is, an aid to killing more efficiently (as in Stalinism and Maoism), and emotional insensibility conceived as an end in itself (as in Nazism, which conceived hardness as a hallmark of a new Nietzschean super-human.) The book is a treasure trove of anecdotes and statistics about genocide. Among the most memorable anecdotes is George Orwell's story of holding his fire on an enemy who was holding up his trousers while running for safety, because the undressed enemy suddenly appeared to Orwell as a vulnerable human being who was capable of feeling indignity and fear. I learned a lot of important history and will probably use the book for reference. My only complaints are that the philosophical discussion of pacifism, and its variants and alternatives, was not as advanced and complex as I'd hoped, and that in some places the book read more like a sensational encyclopedia of torture techniques rather than a political analysis. But it's hard to criticize this amazing interdisciplinary text, which must have been a daunting project, especially on such a weighty subject. I would enthusiastically recommend the book for people who want an introduction to philosophical theories of rational altruism and the ethics of killing. The book is unusually crisp, intelligent, and engaging, never losing sight of the real historical events that motivated Glover to write the book in the first place. I hope more philosophers follow his example.
Rating:
Summary: An Examination of Man's Inhumanity to Man
Review: Jonathan Glover has written an interesting and lively chronicle of the twentieth century using the prism of morality as his filter. Noting that the last 100 years were the most brutal in human history, Glover seeks the reasons why this became the case. In Europe at rhe start of the century, most people accepted the authority of morality. What happened to undermine that authority? Glover states that barbarism is not unique to the twentieth century: atrocities have always been with us throughout recorded time. Technology has made a difference; hyped as the answer for a better life, technology has also made it easier for programs such as genocide and biocide, not to mention the total destruction of humanity via nuclear weapons. Never before has the fate of so many been in the hands of so few. Perhaps it has been that the view of human psychology developed during the Enlightenment has stagnated, failng to adjust to new developments and the outgrowths of those developments in the industrialized world. Glover tellingly quotes John Maynard Keynes's criticism of Bertrand Russell's comments about life and affairs as "brittle" because there was "no solid diagnosis of human nature underlying them." But Glover errs by leading his book with a look at Nietzsche as a harbinger of the new type of thinking, concentrating on Nietzsche's values of "cruelty," which the philosopher had associated with the overman, the man who overcomes himself, creating new values in the process. Nietsche did not endorse his values of the ubermensch as values for the mass of humanity. The Nazis attempted to adopt Nietzsche as a philosophical cornerstone, but it is evident from their writings, especially those of Alfred Baumler (quoted by Glover), that they did not understand exactly what their chosen philosopher was really saying. Glover would have been much better off in this study by leading off with a study of Nietzsche's study of resentment. The twentieth century marked the triumph of resentment over rationality, taking the technology developed through and by a brittle rational world-view and using it not for the enhancement of human life, but rather the destruction of life. Glover also misses another opportunity when he fails to note that the bloody reigns of Stalin and Mao are in a very large sense based on the Enlightenment view of human psychology that mankind was perfectible. Those not in step with the new order were deemed expendable, Glover quotes a chilling statement Stalin made while issuing arrest warrants, "Who's going to remember all this riff-raff in ten or twenty years' time? No one." Most of Glover's analysis is spent with Hitler, and from the viewpoint of twentieth century history we can understand why. Much more is known about Hitler and his regime than those of Stalin and Mao, of whom new revelations are made with every passing year. In covering the excesses of all three dictators, Glover remains on target with an analysis that keeps the reader turning the pages. Other strong points include chapters on Hiroshima, Rwanda, the Gulf War, and the refusal of Italians to help their allies, the Nazis exterminate Jews in Croatia, serving as a beacon of hope and rationality in a deadly irrational darkness. Well worth your time and money, especially that it is now in paperback, and thus easier to read on the train or bus. The book will make you think and is the perfect tome to read on the way to and from work.
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Summary: To read with eyes burning ...
Review: Jonathan Glover's book is not quite like anything you've read on war, state terror, and genocide. The tour of twentieth-century horrors is thematic rather than chronological, organized according to the ethical issues Glover wants to explore. This takes a little getting used to, but it allows the author to jump, for example, from the First World War to the Cuban Missile Crisis, to see which lessons had been learned in the interim and which might be applied in the future. The cumulative power of Glover's pointillist technique is enormous. "Humanity" combines a clear-eyed (necessarily often gruesome) depiction of *in*humanity with an informed and enlightening discussion of how leaders and ordinary people can change things for the better. As an examination of the psychological and existential origins of mass murder and genocide, it marks an advance on Ervin Staub's classic "Roots of Evil," and should be of interest to any student of modern history and politics.
Rating:
Summary: A terrific book!
Review: Put simply, this is a wonderful book. Jonathan Glover has written a book that everyone with an interest in recent history should read. While the ultimate focus is philosophical, it is a terrific book of history. Glover takes some of the most horrific events of the past century (WWI, Stalinism, the Holocaust, Hiroshima, Rwanda, Bosnia), provides a clear analysis (he would hold his own with any historian), then further analyzes the events and how they might have been avoided in philosphical terms. But he doesn't let the philosophical discussions become either arcane or pedantic. For someone like me, who has more of a historical background, the philosophy was clear and enlightening. While he doesn't completely avoid abstractions, he addresses the abstractions is such a way that they engender practical understanding of many of the great horrors of the 20th century. One can only hope that our national leaders will read and understand his message. I was struck by the incisiveness of his analysis of Stalinist Russia, in particular the reasons why it was such a dismal failure (both in economic and human terms). I came away with a keener understanding of the principles by which to judge the viability of other "utopian" schemes. A final point and a minor quibble. Glover concludes that religion has largely failed in creating the kind of moral authority that will prevent future Rwandas and Bosnias. That's true as far as it goes. But it doesn't mean that the religions are false. G. K. Chesterton said: "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and not tried." I believe that the moral authority of rational people of faith is still our greatest hope for a 21st century that is better than the 20th. Enough of the quibbling. Glover has written an accessible, interesting and important book that demands a broad readership by people who would like to see a more humane world.
Rating: 
Summary: Better on history than philosophy
Review: Readers who pick up this book probably think they are going to be reading a discussion centering on ethical thinking in the 20th century with some mention of historical events. Not entirely so. This book is more a compendium of the great mass murders of the 20th century with some comments on the abuse of the enlightenment and Nietzsche. Glover gives cursory descriptions of the atrocities in Nazi Germany, the USSR, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Yugoslavia (Nothing about the murder of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, though.) He also discusses World War One, the My Lai massacre, Hiroshima and the Cuban missile crisis. In a way, the book is a kind of Cliff's Notes for these 20th century events. He doesn't offer anything new, but if you didn't take a contemporary history course or haven't been reading the newspapers, this is a book for you. A problem with this book is that Glover feels most comfortable on well-trod ground. There doesn't seem to be nearly so many books about, say, Rwanda as there are on Nazi Germany, but still most of the book is about Nazi Germany. Glover notes that Stalin and Mao (and proportionally to the population, Pol Pot) were responsible for more deaths than Hitler and Himmler, but Nazism still has "a unique moral horror." Perhaps so, but the reader may also feel that Glover spends so much space on Nazism because there is so much more material to mine. Indeed, he doesn't reach far for his material. His sources include William Shirer, Hannah Arendt, Robert Conquest and Barbara Tuchman. Even the reader who hasn't read much contemporary history will have a feeling of déjà vu. Like Allan Bloom, Glover portrays Nietzsche as the villain of the 20th century. Partially because Nietzsche urged men to be hard and to close their eyes to pity, Hitler and Stalin did just that. This might be true in Hitler's case, but is it true in Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's? For them, wasn't Marx, who is barely discussed here, more of an influence? Did Nietzsche also help cause the genocide in Rwanda and was Lt. William Calley thinking about "Also sprach Zarathustra" as he led his men into My Lai? Glover does mention Heidegger, but he is more interested in Heidegger's vanity and willingness to use the Nazis for career advancement than in his influential but "nebulous and elusive" philosophy. Didn't Cambodia or Yugoslavia or Rwanda also have native philosophers who prepared the ground for disaster or who became collaborators when the murderous regimes came to power? There isn't much about them here. Although this book is supposed to be a "moral history" of the 20th century, the summaries of events are better than the summaries of ethical influences on these historical events. If someone were really interested in learning about the terrible events of the 20th century, he or she would first skip to the back of the book and go find the materials that Glover used as references. After reading those, the reader would look for still more books. Alone this book will suffice only for those who want a thumbnail sketch of the terrors of the last century.
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Summary: The consequences of ethical ideas as documented in history
Review: This book is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in moral philosophy, moral psychology, or moral *history*. Glover's ideas are so interesting--and the details he discusses are so shocking--I found this book impossible to put down. Jonathan Glover has written a highly readable history of the twentieth century that focuses on atrocities. While Glover, a moral philosopher and Director of the Centre of Medical Law and Ethics at King's College in London, uses his philosophical expertise to provide a very philosophically-informed history, his knowledge of twentieth century history is formidable. The result is a book that, as far as I know, is absolutely unique in the literature: a history of the twentieth century from a distinctively *moral* perspective. Glover discusses the ethical ideas used to justify these atrocities, and the psychological conditions that made evil actions. For those of us who have a background in moral philosophy, this made for some very interesting reading as he applied age-old theoretical arguments to concrete historical events and persons. To cite just one example: commenting on the kind of life Stalin lived, Glover notes a parallel with an argument made by Socrates. Glover writes, Stalin's "life gives striking support to what Socrates said about the life of an immoral person not being enviable. His bitterness, paranoia and fear make it hard to imagine anyone else wanting to be Stalin" (p. 250). This type of historico-philosophical insight can be found throughout Glover's book. In addition to the historical and philosophical aspect of Glover's work, there is also a psychological component. Throughout the book, Glover discusses what he calls the 'moral resources' -- certain human needs and tendencies that work against selfish behavior. Glover presents convincing evidence that shows how the suppression of moral resources contributed to the tragedies of the last century. This, in turn, allows Glover to offer suggestions on how to cultivate the moral resources in everyone, so that we can try to avoid the atrocities of the last century. One final comment: Glover's history is not comprehensive, nor was it intended to be (as he makes clear on p. 2). Glover focuses on several of the major atrocities of the twentieth century, including the Holocaust, Hiroshama, the Gulag, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, and Rwanda. While his list of subjects is far from comprehensive, Glover has identified themes in human nature and in ethics that probably apply to the events that were omitted.
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