Evil: An Investigation [Paperback]

Lance Morrow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 2004

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, evil remains as potent and radical a force in the world as it has ever been. We all know evil when we encounter it-in the villains of history like Hitler and Stalin, in the routine brutality that makes the nightly news, in the hateful violence of terrorists and sociopaths-but the phenomenon of evil has long resisted explanation. In this singular survey of this mysterious but all too often palpable force, veteran Time magazine essayist Lance Morrow offers a sustained look at the unmistakable ways evil manifests itself in history and in the human heart. This is a provocative meditation on the role evil plays in shaping human history, a timely analysis of how this primitive force can be understood in a modern society of high-tech, sensationalized brutality, and a daring exploration of why evil may be necessary in the world.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Among the most perplexing reactions to the endless acts of violence, terror, and war in the 20th and 21st centuries is the attempt by some to explain the brutality in geo-political or sociobiological terms. Author Lance Morrow takes these thinkers to task in his powerful and provocative Evil: An Investigation. While Morrow recognizes the need to try to understand these acts, he ultimately asserts that no explanation can meliorate the fact that in essence, they are evil. Acknowledging that evil can never be fully defined, Morrow attempts to place that elusive, human impulse into a 21st-century context. Morrow believes that "A certain flippancy about evil" flourishes in times of peace and prosperity. Therefore, he contends, "A lively awareness of evil. . . must be re-installed in the West" in this post-September 11 world. Throughout the book, Morrow peppers his numerous micro-examples (murder or spiteful office politics) and macro-examples (war, genocide, or terrorism) with thought-provoking and often unanswerable questions: "Is there any such thing as an objective standard of evil?. . . If evil becomes permissible, is it still evil?" Do we sometimes have to commit evil for the greater good?

The strength of this book lies in Morrow's powerful intellect, the range of his discussion, and the ease with which he makes this difficult, enigmatic concept accessible. His investigation casts a wide net, and he poses some of his most challenging questions in regard to American culture. His examples, sometimes drawn from his experience as a journalist, span history--from WWI to the present, with particular focus on WWII and Stalinist Russia--and his insights are always persuasive. Like all good teachers, Morrow provides few definitive answers. He admits, "There is no evidence that evil can be extinguished." But despite this sobering thought, he maintains that we must never give up hope. Evil will always exist, but only with hope, love, and conscience, will it, at least, be held at bay. --Silvana Tropea --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

In Heart, a memoir centering on his heart attacks, Morrow asked questions about the nature of evil as it relates to illness and death. This foray into evil generally is a thing of snippets rather than sustained case building. Morrow, author of more than 150 Time cover stories, begins by responding to a variety of events, some of them on the scale of the Holocaust and September 11, others more modest, such as several particularly gruesome murders and the shootings at Columbine, trying to grasp where evil inheres. He then wanders through a mass of heartfelt but turgid sentiments, from which it is possible to extract a few conclusions about his opinions: evil exists; people may be evil; deeds may be evil even when people are not; there are degrees of evil, great and small, justifiable and unjustifiable. Franz Fanon's liberation-through-violence ideology and the cult of the Marquis de Sade are evil, for Morrow, and so are thinkers who praise either. And so on. The book rises above this level occasionally, as in his portrait of several individuals who resist classification, and supports another conclusion: that we have to talk about evil. At other times, Morrow descends to the level of mere name-dropping, as in his portrayal of a Stockholm conference on international violence. One can extract from this book a reasonably favorable opinion of Morrow's thoughtfulness and personal ethics, but he does not offer much exploration in the direction of possible solutions, nor has he been rigorous in sifting his reflections for lucidity. Anybody who wants to keep up on impassioned screeds in pop ethics will find something to like here, but much religious thought on the matter, to take one example, goes undiscussed.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (September 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465047556
• ISBN-13: 978-0465047550
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #221,780 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful, But Ultimately Unsatisfying, December 21, 2003

By 

W. C HALL (Newport, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Evil: An Investigation (Hardcover)

This book has much of value, but ultimately left me unsatisfied. At the end, I empathized with how the person must have felt who heard the blind men describe their encounter with the elephant; each had latched onto part of the reality of the beast, but their individual pieces didn't add up to a coherent portrait.

In "Evil: An Investigation" Lance Morrow offers a series of descriptions of evil at work in our world. He draws on his own experiences--an encounter with Milosevic, as well as on the terrible events that have dominated so much of the human story. Whether it's Hitler, Caligula, or the events of 911, Morrow has interesting observations, elegantly expressed with the same gifts that have graced the pages of Time magazine for almost 40 years. Most intriguing is his assertion that evil "is always a story, a narrative played out in the world." He poses many intriguing questions--such as whether evil can be committed to further the good, or if degrees of evil exist; but the answers are few.

At the core, though, something is lacking. Morrow ultimately asks if we can--or even if we should try--to understand evil. If that's true, than what is the purpose of this work? I came to these pages hoping to find some sort of greater clarity, if not a definitive explanation. That's why I ultimately finished this book with a sense of disappointment.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A thought-provoking book, July 2, 2004

By 

Busy Mom (Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Evil: An Investigation (Hardcover)

I was born in 1969, so the most horrible thing I ever saw before 9/11 was the Challenger exploding just after take-off, like most of Morrow's students that he mentioned in one chapter. I was too young to remember anything of Vietnam or WWII or anything like that. And this book serves as a reminder of history's lessons.

This isn't my typical reading ~~ my dad loaned this book to me to read. This isn't a typical book either, nor a typical subject. I've never really thought much about evil or what it means as I've never really been exposed to it. Morrow writes, in essay-style (which makes it easier to read and to grasp his thoughts in a way that makes you ponder each word), about evil. It's not a scientific study. It's not a book that puts the blame on people. It grasps different thoughts of evil, what it means and he used examples to back each thought. Yes, Hitler may be the most popular subject in this book, but that is probably because Morrow grew up with hearing the horrors of the concentration camps as he was born in the late 1930s.

This is one of the most thought-provoking books I have ever read. It is also not an easy read ~~ it is rather dark since Morrow expounds on the subject of evil and whether evil is ever justified or not. He also explores different types of evil ~~ though it is hard to do so since evil is evil and he'll admit that too in this book. He doesn't touch much on the theologian definition of evil in this book ~~ but rather on his thoughts and questions of what he defined is evil.

If you're in a reflective mood, this book would be a good choice. I think philosophy majors, religion majors and even English majors should read this book ~~ it's not your typical book, and it's a book that makes you ponder. You have to come up with your own definition of evil but this book is a great start on that journey. It is also a great discussion fodder for any book group.

7-2-04

30 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, September 12, 2003

By 

TR (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Evil: An Investigation (Hardcover)

This book is not a philosophical or theological investigation into the metaphysical or ontological nature of evil. Morrow does not attempt to clarify what evil consists of, nor does he try and describe what its essential features might be. Instead, he offers anecdotes and descriptions of various events where evil manifests itself in various ways which are sometimes obscured by ideology or political interests that obscure the very presence of evil. In this regard, his book can be thought-provoking since it is easy for most people to believe that whatever side is opposed to theirs is wrong if not evil; however, it may be that neither side is good and evil wins the day since it has locked both sides into the idea that the other side must be destroyed. As a result, Morrow reminds us that evil is perhaps its most pernicious when it takes on an everyday logic of legitimacy, as something which makes up what is mistakenly considered as a perfectly acceptable part of one's everyday life and outlook on the world - for example, the kinds of ethnic hatreds that define much of the world today. However, because Morrow is unwilling to address the metaphysical and theological dimension of evil, the book is unsatisfying and seems to buy into the very sort of agnosticism that is wedded to modern nihilism which promotes much of the evil Morrow observes: after all, if God exists everything changes and there is a Good, a measure against which evil stands out in stark contrast. Morrow's unwillingness to consider the theological dimension in any depth (at times he writes as if he thinks any notion of the devil is superstitious or an anthropological/sociological curiosity) means that he often talks of evil as if it were a substance, not a personal energy that seeks to disfigure, defame, and destroy. Consequently, if there is no metaphysical or transcendental reality or truth that determines evil, and what is considered evil at any one time would seem to be historically bound and determined. Even if Morrow rejects the existence of God, he doesn't take the next step and ask how we are to understand evil in a metaphysically fat-free world. Lastly, while Morrow's book is full of descriptions of physical, historical evils - atrocities of war, murder, plunder, etc. - he never discusses in any depth the role of ideology. As others have remarked, the gas-chambers of the Nazis and the gulags of modern communists states began in the classroom of educated professors of philosophy, history, and psychology who preached revolutionary ideas from everything from the state and the family to religion and the arts. In the end, Mr. Morrow has written a thought-provoking book on a limited level which should have been a 15-paged essay in the Atlantic Monthly or Harpers.