On Killing

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. - Publisher.

First sentence: One of the roots of our misunderstanding of the psychology of the battlefield lies in the misapplication of the fight-or-fight model to the stresses of the battlefield.

Year

1995

Language

English

Publisher

Little, Brown and Co.

Editions

19

Pages

377

ISBN

9780316040938

Data source: Wikidata