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Robert Jay Lifton, a brave researcher, scholar, author, and activist, has for almost sixty years been studying some of the most horrific war crimes of the twentieth century. Interviewing hundreds of victims and some of the perpetrators, he has used what he learned to inform and alert a reluctant audience about what really happened, and the implications for our future.
He has written over twenty books and edited several others. Witness to an Extreme Century is his latest publication. He describes it as “a culmination of nearly six decades of listening and talking,” and “a highly subjective story of my life experiences in connection with the work I have done” (p. xi).
In writing the book, he did not have to rely solely on memory. He had arranged for his papers to be kept in the New York Public Library. They include hundreds of thousands of pages of research interviews, personal notes, and correspondence. An important part of the research was the researcher's personal feelings and associations, as well as a record of his dreams. In this memoir, he makes ample references to these dreams, the