The Routledge Handbook of the History of Settler Colonialism. Edited by Edward Cavanagh and Lorenzo Veracini. New York:  Routledge, 2017,  496 pp., $47.99 paperback. DOI: On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence, and Justice. By Adam Kirsch. New York:  W. W. Norton & Company, 2024,  160 pp., $24.99 hardcover.

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Conflict is inevitable within individuals, among individuals, within compatible groups, between groups, and between nations. As individuals, we all utilize compromise formations, trying to find the most adaptive solution as we try to balance conflicted desires, wishes, and ideas within ourselves and between us and others. Can that principle be applied to nations? Can compromises be found, or does might always make right?

Einstein and Freud addressed the danger of unrestrained exercise of power in society, considering conflicts between one's desires and the desires of one's fellow human beings. Einstein asked, “Is it possible to control man's mental evolution so as to make him proof against the psychoses of hate and destructiveness?” (Freud, 1933/1960, p. 201). Freud noted:

Of the psychological characteristics of civilization [to prevent war] two appear to be the most important: a strengthening of the intellect, which is beginning to

1. The review of the volume by Cavanagh and Veracini was essentially completed by the middle of August 2024. I then learned that Kirsch's critique of the construct of settler colonialism was to be published on August 20, 2024. In this essay I integrate Kirsch's ideas (which are similar to mine) into my original review.

Leon Hoffman, New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, 167 East 67th Street, New York, NY 1006

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govern instinctual life, and an internalization of the aggressive impulses, with all its consequent advantages and perils. (pp. 214-215)

An examination of settler colonialism from a psychoanalytic perspective is valuable in several ways. Unfortunately, too many people view this very complex topic from a binary perspective, oversimplifying causes as well as modes of redress. One source of oversimplification is a result of the difficulty in managing/mastering our own aggression that is stirred up when we think of horrors from the past and observe them in the present. A variety of defense mechanisms