Becoming Evil Summary

In January 2002 James Waller released the first edition of the book “Becoming Evil – How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killings.” Dr. James Waller is a professor at Keene State College in New Hampshire and is home to one of the nation’s oldest Holocaust resource centers, the Cohen Center for Genocide and Holocaust Studies. Becoming Evil uncovers the historical and modern day reasons to why people do evil and attempts to debunk common explanations for genocide and mass killings. Some of Waller’s other notable works include “Prejudice across America” and “Face to Face: The Changing State of Racism Across America.” Waller takes and in depth look at the societal, psychopathological and cultural reasons that would make a good person commit such heinous acts of evil. “What culture, society, or nation, what ideology, historical prejudice, or ethnic hatred, what psychological profile or cluster of personality traits, what unusual situation or special circumstance is to be deemed the cause of such aberrant human behavior?” (Browning/Waller) Why do humans commit genocide and mass killings?

”The focus of the book is on extraordinary human evil. The focus on human evil writ large is not about the isolated, tabloid cases of

Becoming Evil is such a valuable resource and has helped further understand the societal, cultural and psychological aspects of genocide and mass killings. However, it also provides further insight on why people do evil. Becoming Evil is separated into three parts which allows the reader to develop their own thoughts while Waller provides his opinions and the opinions of others on certain situations. The person writing this paper believes that Becoming Evil can be integrated into the course material to give students another viewpoint on the forces of evil that have plagued our world for the last