From the editor: From the Holocaust to the World Trade Center bombing, we cannot escape the willful perpetration of mass murder and other horrors. Evil is a stark reality that cannot be wished away.

Yet all major evil is committed by people who are neither lovers of evil nor indifferent to it, but convinced of their own rectitude and obsessed with the evil of their victims. Wars against evil generally lead to greater evil.

In this deeply moving book, a brilliant assembly of philosophers, poets, therapists, and social scientists accept the reality and the many-sidedness of evil, explore ways to respond to evil, and examine the possibilities for defeating evil.

* Maya Angelou draws upon African-American traditions to outline the strategy for surviving and transcending evil.
* Holocaust authority Raul Hilberg tries to under­stand the motives and the mechanisms that led to genocide in "civilized" Europe.
* Jeffrey Burton Russell identifies and describes what he terms "Radical Evil," known to Christian theology as "the Devil."
* Radiologist Herbert L. Abrams highlights the ongoing risks of nuclear weaponry, including the inevitability of nuclear terrorism.
* M. Scott Peck explains "institutional evil," the evil done by individuals who are not especially evil, when they are organized in conscienceless groups, and offers "community-building" as the best antidote.
* Philosopher Philip Paul Hallie discusses both the power and the limitations of "love" as a means of countering evil.
* Richard W. Lyman argues that we should try to understand the social and environmental causes of evil-doing, without absolving the evil-doers of any responsibility.
* An informative appendix gives important Ancient, Christian, and Jungian statements on the nature of evil.

Pages: 297
Special Interest: Evil, Cruelty, Torture, Social Controls, Human Development, Ritual, Psychology, Ethics.