David Smith's new book, 'Less than Human,' reviewed by New York Times Book Review

Associate Professor of Philosophy David Livingstone Smith's new book, Less than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others, was reviewed by David Berreby in the New York Times Book Review on Sunday March 6, 2011. Berreby explains: "Dehumanization is a mind-set, as Smith writes, that 'decommissions' our 'moral inhibitions' about mistreating fellow human beings. Encased in law and custom, this psychological process has often licensed slavery, genocide and countless other cruelties. And it is, Smith writes in this stalwart attempt to tame the mystery with philosophy, a moral and cognitive problem as old as history. 

Smith is the author of several books, including Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind and The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War. Find out more about Smith and Less than Human.

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