Europe's Inner Demons

It is not too much to say that Professor Cohn has revolutionised the study of the subject - It is a brilliant book. – Bernard Levin * Observer *An indispensable study. – Robin Lane Fox * Financial Times *This is a book of real stature which I hope will have a side impact. Only if we begin to understand the horrifying recesses of the human imagination can we prevent the recurrences of those dreadful, irrational persecutions which have so disfigured human history. – Anthony Storr

Norman Cohn was born in London in 1915 and educated at Gresham’s School and Christ Church, Oxford. Scholar and research scholar at Christ Church between 1933 and 1939, after the war he taught in universities in England, Scotland, Ireland, America and Canada. In 1966 he became a Professorial Fellow in the University of Sussex and director of an international research project on the preconditions for persecutions and genocides. From 1973 to 1980 he was Astor-Wolfson Professor at Sussex and is now Professor Emeritus. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the author of Warrant for Genocide and The Pursuit of the Millennium (also in Pimlico).