UNDERSTANDING VIOLENCE
ABOUT HOLDING A MIRROR UP TO NATURE:
Whoever would have thought that William Shakespeare could help us prevent murder in the twenty-first century?”
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Shakespeare has been dubbed the greatest psychologist of all time. This book seeks to prove that statement by comparing the playwright’s fictional characters with real-life examples of violent individuals, from criminals to political actors. For Gilligan and Richards, the propensity to kill others, even (or especially) when it results in the killer’s own death, is the most serious threat to the continued survival of humanity. In this volume, the authors show how humiliated men, with their desire for retribution and revenge, apocalyptic violence and political religions, justify and commit violence, and how love and restorative justice can prevent violence.
Although our destructive power is far greater than anything that existed in his day, Shakespeare has much to teach us about the psychological and cultural roots of all violence. In this book, the authors tell what Shakespeare shows, through the stories of his characters: what causes violence and what prevents it. MORE
It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this book. ” —Terri Apter, psychologist and author.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
James Gilligan is an American psychiatrist who has specialized in studying the causes and prevention of violence. For 35 years he taught at the Harvard Medical School, where he became Director of the Institute of Law and Psychiatry. He has served as a consultant on the causes and prevention of violence to President Clinton, Tony Blair and the Law Lords of the House of Lords. More
William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".
His plays are perhaps his most enduring legacy, but his poems also remain popular to this day. More
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David A.J. Richards is currently Edwin D. Webb Professor of Law at NYU, where he has taught constitutional law and criminal law for 35 years. He is the author of over twenty book on human rights and the basic constitutional rights of American constitutionalism as well as studies of nonviolence, Verdi’s operas, and mutual love as the key to resisting injustice. More
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