© Al Satterwhite
http://www.alsatterwhite.com
III. Books in which Milgram's ideas play a significant role, with varying degrees of significance.
This section is subdivided into the following topics: a. Obedience to authority; b. The small-world problem ("six degrees of separation"), and c. Urban stimulus overload.
- Obedience to authority
- Books which devote at least a chapter or equivalent to the topic
- Philip Zimbardo (2007). The Lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. NY: Random House.
- The long-awaited book about the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE)—and its contemporary implications. Superbly written by its creator, a past president of the American Psychological Association, it is must reading for even those who have some familiarity with the SPE.
- Mark Earls (2007). Herd: How to Change Mass Behavior by Harnessing Our True Nature. NY: Wiley.
- Kirsten Fermaglich (2006). American Dreams and Nazi Nightmares: Early Holocaust Consciousness and Liberal America, 1957-1965. Boston: Brandeis University Press.
- An historian who examines the life and work of 4 American Jewish intellectuals, who, she argues, were influenced by the Holocaust. Besides Milgram, the book focuses on Robert J. Lifton, Betty Friedan, and Stanley Elkins. Scholarly and highly readable.
- Roger R. Hock (2005). Forty Studies That Changed Psychology: Explorations into the History of Psychological Research (5th edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
- Rebecca Lemov (2005). World as Laboratory: Experiments with Mice, Mazes, and Men. NY: Hill & Wang.
- Augustine Brannigan (2004). The Rise and Fall of Social Psychology. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine De Gruyter.
- Richard L. Gregory (1987). The Oxford Companion to the Mind. NY: Oxford University Press.
- This one-volume encyclopedia contains an entry on obedience by Milgram, one of his last writings to appear in print.
- Jean Lipman-Blumen (2004). The Allure of Toxic Leaders: Why We Follow Destructive Bosses and Corrupt Politicians—and How We Can Survive Them. NY: Oxford University Press.
- Douglas G. Mook (2004). Classic Experiments in Psychology. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
- Susan Murray & Laurie Ouellette (Eds.) (2004). Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture. NY: New York University Press.
- One of the chapters expresses the arguable viewpoint that Milgram is the father of reality TV.
- Robert P. Abelson, Kurt P. Frey, Aiden P. Gregg (2003). Experiments With People: Revelations from Social Psychology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- A readable and informative book, whose first author was a senior colleague of Milgram at Yale.
- Roger Brown (2003). Social Psychology: The Second Edition. NY: Free Press.
- A textbook by one of the most erudite social psychologists, who was also Milgram’s teacher and, later, colleague. Its first chapter is devoted largely to the obedience experiments.
- Christopher Ricks (2002). Reviewery. NY: Other Press.
- Ian Jack (2001). Granta 71: Shrinks. NY: Grove Press, Granta.
- Stewart Justman (1998). The Psychological Mystique (Rethinking Theory). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
- Jon’A Meyer (1997). Inaccuracies in Children’s Testimony: Memory, Suggestibility, or Obedience to Authority. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press.
- The book draws authoritatively on the obedience literature to shed light on its topic.
- Robert Altemeyer (1996). The Authoritarian Specter. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
- The author devoted most of his professional career to reinventing the Authoritarian Personality by the development of a new scale with impeccable psychometric properties. Highly readable, this is the last of his 3 books on the subject.
- Lee Ross & Richard E. Nisbett (1991). The Person and The Situation: Perspective of Social Psychology. NY: McGraw-Hill.
- Herbert C. Kelman & V. Lee Hamilton (1990). Crimes of Obedience: Toward a Social Psychology of Authority and Responsibility. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- The most important post-Milgram work on obedience, written by one of the “elder statesmen” of social psychology and one of his former students.
- William Gamson, et al. (1982). Encounters With Unjust Authority. Homewood, IL: Dorsey.
- A research classic, demonstrating resistance to—rather than yielding to—unwanted social pressure.
- John Sabini & Maury Silver (1982). Moralities of Everyday Life. NY: Oxford University Press.
- An insightful book co-authored by two of Milgram’s students.
- Richard I. Evans (Ed.) (1980). The Making of Social Psychology. NY: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
- Contains an interview with Milgram, as well as other important social psychologists.
- Barrington Moore (1978). Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt. NY: Random House.
- Alan C. Elms (1972). Social Psychology and Social Relevance. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
- One of the first of the genre of social psychology texts to use an informal, conversational style. The author brings a personal touch to his chapter on the obedience studies since he was Milgram’s first assistant involved in that research.
- Potpourri: An improbable diversity of books, capturing the wide-ranging impact of Milgram’s obedience studies on contemporary culture and thought
- Chip Kidd (2008). The learners. New York: Scribners
- A tragic-comic novel, set in New Haven, 1961. The main character, employed at a local ad agency, gets a call from Yale to create an ad for the local newspaper to recruit volunteers for a "learning" experiment. Curious, he volunteers for the experiment himself, with some unexpected results.
- Carol Tavris & Elliot Aronson (2007). Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts. NY: Harcourt.
- An absorbing, insightful and wide-ranging book, grounded in solid research and written by two highly respected social psychologists.
- David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim (2006). The Intellectual Devotional. NY: Rodale.
- This book consists of wide-ranging nuggets of information (“daily lessons”), one for each day of the year. One day is devoted to the obedience experiments. A novelty item, but surprisingly informative.
- Suzanne Clothier (2005). Bones Would Rain From the Sky: Deepening Our Relationship With Dogs. NY: Grand Central Publishing.
- A beautifully written book for dog owners on how to improve their relationship with their pet. Draws on the Milgram experiments to admonish owners who readily carry out cruel training techniques on their pets at the behest of dog training “experts.”
- Laya Saul (2004). You Don’t Have to Learn Everything the Hard Way: What I Wish Someone Had Told Me. Denver: Kadima Press.
- A self-help book with sound advice for teenagers.
- James Surowiecki (2004). The Wisdom of Crowds. NY: Doubleday.
- Timothy D. Wilson (2004). Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
- David G. Myers (2002). Intuition: Its Power and Perils. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Eileen Coughlan (2000). Dying by Degrees: An Emily Goodstriker Mystery. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Turnstone Press.
- A clever murder-mystery centered on a sinister version of the obedience experiments. A page-turner!
- Nachum Braverman (1999). The Bible for the Clueless, But Curious: Finally, a Guide to Jewish Wisdom for Real People. Pikesville, MD: Leviathan Press.
- Ronna Kabatznick (1998). The Zen of Eating. NY: Peregrine.
- Written by one of Milgram’s doctoral students, this book aims to provide (according to its Book Description) “an alternative to ineffective diet programs, products, and pills.”
- Martha Minow, et al. (1993). Narrative, Violence, and the Law: The Essays of Robert Cover. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
- Janet Malcolm (1990). The Journalist and the Murderer. NY: Vintage Books.
- Doris M. Lessing (1987). Prisons We Choose to Live Inside. NY: Harper Perennial.
- Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman (1982). In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies. NY: HarperCollins.
- A classic, it is one of the most widely-read books about business success.
- Arthur Koestler (1978). Janus: Summing Up. NY: Random House.
- Serge Moscovici (1977). Social Influence and Social Change. NY: Academic Press.
- In this book, the author, a French social psychologist and one of the first to penetrate the dominance of North Americans in the field, presents his theory of minority influence.
- Dannie Abse (1973). The Dogs of Pavlov. London: Valentine, Mitchell & Co.
- The is the first play—and the only published one—based on the obedience experiments. Besides the script, the book contains an exchange between the playwright and Milgram on the ethics of his experiment.
- Holocaust and human destructiveness
- David Cesarani (2006). Becoming Eichmann. Cambridge, MA: DeCapo Press.
- Although its treatment of the obedience experiments is flawed, this is the most complete and detailed biography of Eichmann to date.
- Abbott Gleason, et al. (2005). On “Nineteen Eighty-Four”: Orwell and Our Future. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Based on a conference marking the 50th anniversary of George Orwell’s classic. Among others, it contains a chapter by Philip Zimbardo on Jim Jones’ deadly leadership.
- Arthur G. Miller (Ed.) (2005). The Social Psychology of Good and Evil. NY: The Guilford Press.
- Benjamin A. Valentino (2005). Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
- James Waller (2005). Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing. NY: Oxford University Press.
- Martha Knisely Huggins, Mika Haritos-Fatouros, & Philip G. Zimbardo (2002). Violence Workers: Police Torturers and Murderers Reconstruct Brazilian Atrocities. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
- Neil J. Kressel (2002). Mass Hate: The Global Rise of Genocide and Terror (Revised and updated). Cambridge, MA: Westview Press.
- An excellent, wide-ranging analysis of intergroup hatred written by a social psychologist.
- Leonard S. Newman & Ralph Erber (Eds.) (2002). Understanding Genocide: The Social Psychology of the Holocaust. NY: Oxford University Press.
- Various social psychologists present their own perspectives on the Holocaust. Includes a chapter by me evaluating Milgram’s perspective on the Holocaust.
- Zygmunt Bauman (2001). Modernity and the Holocaust. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
- Victoria J. Barnett (2000). Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity During the Holocaust. NY: Praeger Paperback.
- Roy F. Baumeister (1999). Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty. NY: Holt Paperbacks.
- David R. Blumenthal (1999). The Banality of Good and Evil: Moral Lessons from the Shoah and Jewish Tradition. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
- James M. Glass (1999). “Life Unworthy of Life”: Racial phobia and mass murder in Hitler’s Germany. NY: Basic Books.
- Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (1996). Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. NY: Knopf.
- A best-seller, this book presents a controversial approach to the Holocaust. Rejecting Milgram’s perspective, among others, it argues for a “monocausal” explanation.
- Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (1995). On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
- An insightful and troubling book by a military psychologist on how military training helps to overcome humans’ natural resistance to killing. Arguing that similar “enabling factors” emerge out of a soldier’s training and violent movies and “first-person shooter” video games, he is a vocal opponent of these forms of entertainment.
- Eva Fogelman (1995). Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust. NY: Anchor Books.
- A beautifully written analysis about non-Jews who saved Jews from the Nazis, written by a student of Milgram. One of the best books of its kind.
- Margot S. Strom (1994). Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior. Brookline, MA: Facing History & Ourselves National Foundation.
- The most widely-used curriculum for teaching about the Holocaust in the schools.
- Christopher R. Browning (1993). Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. NY: Harper Perennial.
- Describing the murderous actions against Jews by Reservists who were “ordinary men,” the author, a historian of the Holocaust, sees parallels in their behavior and Milgram’s obedience experiments.
- Fred Emil Katz (1993). Ordinary People and Extraordinary Evil: A Report on the Beguilings of Evil. State University of New York Press.
- Erich Fromm (1992). The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. NY: Holt Paperbacks.
- Ervin Staub (1992). The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence. NY: Cambridge University Press.
- Joel E. Dimsdale (Ed.) (1980). Survivors, Victims, and Perpetrators: Essays on the Nazi Holocaust. NY: Taylor & Francis.
- A useful collection of psychological perspectives on the Holocaust. See especially the chapter “Destroying the innocent with a clear conscience: A sociopsychology of the Holocaust” by Milgram’s students John Sabini and Maury Silver.
- Hans Askenasy (1978). Are We All Nazis? Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart.
- Written by a clinical psychologist who survived the Second World War under the Nazis, the book answers in the affirmative, based largely on the obedience experiments. Although polemic and somewhat shrill in tone, it is filled with a dizzying amount of information.
- Henry V. Dicks (1972). Licensed Mass Murder: A socio-psychological study of some SS Killers. NY: Basic Books.
- Ethics
- Allan J. Kimmel (2007). Ethical Issues in Behavioral Research: Basic and Applied Perspectives. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
- One of the most comprehensive books on the ethics of research.
- Laura P. Hartman (2004). Perspectives in Business Ethics. NY: McGraw-Hill.
- A very useful, wide-ranging sourcebook on the topic.
- John M. Darley, David M. Messick & Tom R. Tyler (Eds.) (2001). Social Influences on Ethical Behavior in Organizations. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- James H. Korn (1997). Illusions of Reality: A History of Deception in Social Psychology. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
- The authoritative book on the subject.
- Barbara H. Stanley, Joan E. Sieber & Gary B. Melton (1996). Research Ethics: A Psychological Approach. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
- O. C. Ferrell & Gareth Gardiner (1991). In Pursuit of Ethics: Tough Choices in the World of Work. Springfield, IL: Smith Collins Company.
- Ruth R. Faden, Tom L. Beauchamp & Nancy M.P. King (1986). A History and Theory of Informed Consent. NY: Oxford University Press.
- The definitive work on the subject written by three ethicists.
- Joan E. Sieber (Ed.) (1984). NIH Readings on the Protection of Human Subjects in Behavioral and Social Science Research: Conference Proceedings and Background Papers. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America.
- Tom L. Beauchamp, Ruth R. Faden, R. Jay Wallace, Jr., & Leroy Walters (1982). Ethical Issues in Social Science Research. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Contains a chapter by Alan Elms defending the ethics of the obedience experiments.
- Robert Burt (1979). Taking Care of Strangers: The Rule of Law in Doctor-Patient Relations. NY: Free Press.
- Jay Katz, et al. (Eds.) (1972). Experimentation with Human Beings. NY: Russell Sage.
- Contains a psychiatrist’s report on his interviews with the “forty worst cases” in the obedience experiments. To the ethicists Ruth Faden and Tom Beauchamp, this anthology is “the most thorough collection of materials on research ethics and the law ever assembled between two covers.”
- Arthur G. Miller (Ed.) (1972). The Social Psychology of Psychological Research. NY: Free Press.
- Books which devote at least a chapter or equivalent to the topic
- The small-world problem ("Six degrees of separation")
The first 5 books in this section are by scientists who have taken the innovative step of applying Milgram’s small-world concept to physical, non-social networks. The 6th is a broad overview of these developments.
- Mark Newman, Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, & Duncan Watts (Eds.) (2006). The Structure and Dynamics of Networks. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Duncan J. Watts (2004). Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. NY: W. W. Norton & Co.
- Alberto-Laszlo Barabasi (2003). Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means. NY: Plume.
- Steven Strogatz (2003). Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order. NY: Hyperion.
- Duncan Watts (2003). Small Worlds: The Dynamics of Networks between Order and Randomness. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Mark Buchanan (2003). Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks. NY: Norton.
- Keith Ferrazzi & Tahl Raz (2005). Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time. NY: Doubleday (A Currency Book).
- A practical “how to” guide on the use of social networking to achieve personal success.
- Malcolm Gladwell (2000). The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. NY: Little, Brown.
- A continuing best seller, in which the small-world concept plays a central role
- Manfred Kochen (Ed.) (1989). The Small World: A Volume of Recent Research Advances Commemorating Ithiel de Sola Pool, Stanley Milgram, and Theodore Newcomb. Hillsdale, NJ: Ablex Publishing.
- A book of original contributions by social-network researchers, including several chapters about research which built on Milgram’s small world method.
- Robert Lance Shotland (1976). University Communication Networks. NY: John Wiley & Sons.
- Urban stimulus overload
- David Shenk (1998). Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut (Revised and Updated Edition). San Francisco: Harper.
- David A. Karp, Gregory P. Stone & William C. Yoels (1991). Being Urban. (2nd edition) NY: Praeger.
- Edward Krupat (1985). People in Cities: The Urban Environment and its Effects. NY: Cambridge University Press.
- Claude S. Fischer (1984). The Urban Experience (2nd edition). NY: Harcourt.
- Harold M. Proshansky, William H. Ittelson, & Leanne G. Rivlin (Eds.) (1976). Environmental Psychology (2nd ed.). NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
- Contains a chapter by Milgram on psychological maps of Paris.
- John Helmer & Neil Eddington (1973). Urbanman: The Psychology of Urban Survival. NY: Free Press.
