The Man Who Shocked The World: ...Stanley Milgram

The Man Who Shocked The World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram

In the early 1960s, Stanley Milgram conducted a series offamous experiments proving that average citizens would readily inflictpainful electric shocks on strangers if they were instructed orencouraged to do so by an authority figure. This biography byUniversity of Maryland professor Blass provides a valuable examinationMilgram’s work and his contributions to the field of socialpsychology. Blass discusses Milgram’s education and career choicesfrom the mid-1950s to the ’70s. He talks at length about thescientist’s training and experiences at Queens College and at Harvard,and about his teaching and research appointments at universities suchas Princeton, Yale and the City University of New York. He describesin great—at times exhausting—detail the controversialexperiments Milgram devised and conducted over the years. And heconsiders how Milgram’s research changed the way "we thinkabout…the role of moral principles in social life." Milgram’spersonal life, however, gets the short shrift in thisnarration. References to the psychologist’s use of cocaine, marijuanaand mescaline are brief and undeveloped; mentions of his wife, Sasha,and their children, Michele and Marc, seem somewhat perfunctory. Thisinattention to matters of personality may limit the book’saudience. But, as the first comprehensive biography of Milgram,Blass’s study nonetheless remains an important contribution to thefield of science history. 8 pages of b&w photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The Washington Post
Questioning Authority

Nearly half a century after they were first conducted, psychologist Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments still rank among the most important studies ever conducted in social psychology. In 1961 as a young professor at Yale, Milgram demonstrated that ordinary people would willingly inflict what they believed were increasingly painful electric shocks on strangers if ordered to do so by someone in a position of authority. Because they occurred and were widely publicized around the time of the trial of Adolph Eichmann, the implementer of the Nazis' Final Solution who insisted he was merely following orders, Milgram's groundbreaking experiments received worldwide attention.

The studies were controversial and remain so, largely because they involved deception (the shocks were fake, and the subjects who received them were actors). But they continue to resonate today because of how strikingly they illustrate individuals' willingness to subjugate their own judgment to that of authority figures.

As University of Maryland psychology professor Thomas Blass makes clear in his highly readable biography The Man Who Shocked the World (Basic, $26), Milgram's far-reaching influence in the world of psychology extends beyond the obedience experiments. It was Milgram, a creative, mercurial, dynamic rebel of protean talents -- he also made films and was involved in television production -- who originated the concept of "six degrees of separation." Before his death in 1984 of a heart attack at age 51, he also advanced the notion of the "familiar stranger" in urban life -- a person recognized because of repeated sightings, say, on the subway, but with whom one never actually interacts.

While Blass's book is not very enlightening on what made Milgram tick, his lucid discussion of the scientist's most important and controversial work and its implications is trenchant and provocative.

Creator of the famous Obedience Experiments and originator of the “six degrees of separation” theory, Stanley Milgram transformed our understanding of human nature and continues to be one of the most important figures in psychology and beyond. In this sparkling biography, Thomas Blass captures the colorful personality and pioneering work of a visionary scientist who revealed the hidden workings of our social world. In this new paperback edition, he includes an afterword connecting Milgram’s theories to torture, war crimes, and Abu Ghraib.

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Basic Books; New Ed edition (February 23, 2009)
Language: English