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The author addresses himself to the general public in the interests of presenting current psychiatric knowledge about the "central problem in human affairs"—hostility. In simple terms and literate style, this brief book achieves the goal of presenting much of the opinion arising from the ego and social psychology wings of the psychoanalytic flying machine. The central idea is straightforward: Hostility, the tendency to injure others, is a fundamental component in all psychopathology; make people emotionally mature, and the problems of criminality, antisocial political action, wars, and anything else which may be characterized as destructive of man will all tend to disappear.
Part One, the Biological Orientation, defines hostility and traces the fight-flight reflex in animals and man. It is brief and general. Part Two is concerned with hostility as a disease. Here the central idea noted above is exposed. The flavor of this section of the book may be shown