Making monsters : the uncanny power of dehumanization / David Livingstone Smith.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface: Something like a darkness -- What is dehumanization? -- Dehumanization is real -- In the blood -- Essential differences -- The logic of race -- Hierarchy -- The order of things -- Being human -- Ideology -- Dehumanization as ideology -- Ambivalence -- Making monsters -- Last words and loose ends.

"Drawing on harrowing accounts of lynchings, Smith establishes what dehumanization is and isn't. To dehumanize an enemy is to hold two incongruous beliefs at the same time: the enemy is at once subhuman and fully human. Calling someone a monster is not merely metaphor-actual dehumanization happens in our minds. The process is deeply seated in our psychology, and it is precisely because we are all human that we are vulnerable to it"--