from the Foreword: Possibly the heartless treatment of children, from the practice of infanticide and abandonment through to the neglect, the rigors of swaddling, the purposeful starving, the beatings, the solitary confinement, and so on, was and is only one aspect of the basic aggressiveness and cruelty of human nature, of the inbred disregard of the rights and feelings of others. Children, being physically unable to resist aggression, were the victims of forces over which they had no control, and they were abused in many imaginable and some almost unimaginable ways by way of expressing conscious or more commonly unconscious motives of their elders... The present volume abounds in evidence of all kinds, from all periods and peoples. The story is monotonously painful, but it is high time that it should be told and that it should be taken into account...
Lloyd de Mause Books
Lloyd deMause is a pivotal figure in psychohistory, a field dedicated to exploring the psychological motivations behind historical events. His work delves into the emotional origins of collective and national behavior, with a particular focus on childhood, family dynamics, and especially child abuse, alongside anthropological and ethnological psychological studies. While the premise that a nation's child-rearing techniques can influence its foreign policy may seem unconventional, deMause's approach offers a distinctive lens through which to understand the roots of social and political development.






from the Foreword: Possibly the heartless treatment of children, from the practice of infanticide and abandonment through to the neglect, the rigors of swaddling, the purposeful starving, the beatings, the solitary confinement, and so on, was and is only one aspect of the basic aggressiveness and cruelty of human nature, of the inbred disregard of the rights and feelings of others. Children, being physically unable to resist aggression, were the victims of forces over which they had no control, and they were abused in many imaginable and some almost unimaginable ways by way of expressing conscious or more commonly unconscious motives of their elders... The present volume abounds in evidence of all kinds, from all periods and peoples. The story is monotonously painful, but it is high time that it should be told and that it should be taken into account...
Frühe persönliche Erfahrungen determinieren politisches Verhalten: Attentate auf Führer - Der Golfkrieg als emotionale Störung - Kindheitsursachen des Terrorismus / Psychohistorische Theorie: Die Wiederaufführung früher Traumata in Krieg und sozialer Gewalt - Die psychogene Geschichtstheorie - Krieg als „gerechte“ Vergewaltigung und Läuterung / Psychohistorische Evolution: Kindheit und kulturelle Evolution - Die Evolution der Kindererziehung - Die Evolution von Psyche und Gesellschaft
Psychohistorie ist die wissenschaftliche Erforschung historischer Motivationen. Dieser Ausgangspunkt der Theoriebildung von Lloyd deMause impliziert eine radikale Kritik sowohl an der traditionellen Geschichtswissenschaft als auch an den traditionellen Formen der Sozialwissenschaften wie Anthropologie, Soziologie und Psychologie. Der Weg zum Verständnis historischer Ereignisse führt nicht über die Sammlung und narrative Anhäufung von Daten aus Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft; er führt über die methodische Ergründung bewußter und unbewußter psychologischer Motive der geschichtlich Handelnden.