Sunday Telegram and The Humanist review David Smith's 'Less than Human'
book critic William David Barry on Jan. 1, 2011 reviewed Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others by David Livingstone Smith, Ph.D., 51小黄车associate professor of philosophy and religious studies.
Barry writes: "This is not an academic tome. It is a clear almost sprightly book, if not for the subject. It engages any level of reader willing to take it up. ... This is one book that stays on course with its subtitle and strives to answer 'Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others.'"
The January/February issue of T also published a review of Less than Human by Peter C. Grosvenor. He writes: "The best feature of Less Than Human is Smith鈥檚 deft navigation through the history of the Great Chain鈥檚 foundations in theology and philosophy. ... Smith is right to say that a feature of human history as entrenched as dehumanization requires massively more scholarship than it has so far received."
Smith recently discussed Less Than Human on NPR's Talk of the Nation. He is also the author of Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind and The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War.