Today, in a continuation of my discussion from last week on COVID-19, nuclear violence, and radiation I talk with psychiatrist and author Robert Jay Lifton.
Robert Jay Lifton graduated from New York Medical College in 1948. Dr. Lifton is credited with helping to establish a new field in medicine called psychohistory, the field of inquiry that explores the psychological motives of individuals and groups of historical actors, as well as the psychological impact of historical events.
Dr. Lifton later served as an Air Force psychiatrist in Japan and Korea, a teacher and researcher at the Washington School of Psychiatry, Harvard University, and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice where he helped to found the Center for the Study of Human Violence.
He is a recipient of the Gandhi Peace Award, the Holocaust Memorial Award, and numerous other national and international awards, as well as many honorary degrees.
His books include Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima which won a National Book Award, Hiroshima in America: A Half-Century of Denial (with Greg Mitchell), The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (Basic Books, 1986) Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir (Free Press, Simon & Schuster, 2011), The Climate Swerve: Reflections on Mind, Hope, and Survival (The New Press, 2017), and Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry (The New Press, 2019).