Past Impersonal

Group Process in Human History

By: Rudolph Binion

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Hardcover | 26 August 2005

At a Glance

Hardcover
208 Pages

Age
18+

Dimensions(cm)
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2

Hardcover

$80.30

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In this groundbreaking study, renowned historian Rudolph Binion develops a whole new understanding of human history. Exploring the collective dimension of human behavior in various historic contexts, he argues that people participate in purposeful group actions while pursuing only their own individual ends as far as they know. The basic moving force in history thus emerges as neither individual motives nor abstract tendencies such as modernization or globalization, but group process operating in concealment. "Past Impersonal" synthesizes decades of Binion's innovative and exhaustive research to show how groups act behind the scenes of history, leading lives of their own independent of individual volition. Through several complementary historic case studies ranging over two millenniums, Binion demonstrates how individuals pursue group purposes, or hidden group agendas, unawares. He discerns three basic modes of group action - adaptive, maladaptive, and symbolic - that may combine, work at cross purposes, or go their separate ways. He draws his material from a rich sampling of mankind's political, social, and cultural past, using quantitative analysis and depth psychology with equal ease and expertise while turning even iconography and epidemiology to new account. Written with both rigor and grace, vividly illustrated to clarify its argument, "Past Impersonal" is a multidisciplinary virtuoso performance: it draws on all the conventional approaches to history while also transcending them.

Industry Reviews

Binion's Hitler Among the Germans towers above the mass of Hitler books. With breathtaking precision, it contributes not just new biographic information, but above all a compelling explanation of Hitler's personal development. It is by far the most brilliant psychohistorical contribution to Hitler research. -Eberhard Ju00e4ckel
"This book is a tour de force-both a highly original work of historical reconstruction and an exact and authoritative statement defining and elucidating the nature of psychohistorical scholarship. Among contemporary psychohistorians, Binion stands quite alone, and I think that whatever stature this particular historiographical orientation has attained (and will attain) is due in no small measure to him."- C.M. Kimmich

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