This book is a very revealing commentary on the human condition. While reviewers here have pretty much covered the details, I wish to disagree with some comments BEING SHOUTED BY THE REVIEWER BELOW. Speaking in general terms, while Americans are often not greatly loved outside their own country, they should not be considered to be any different than other nationalities in regard to obedience. (That they are, IMHO, heavily programmed by political and commercial campaigning is another matter!) In a later review of similar studies Milgram biographer Thomas Blass "compared the outcomes of obedience experiments conducted in the U.S. with those conducted in other countries. Remarkably, the average obedience rates were very similar: In the U.S. studies, some 61 percent of the subjects were fully obedient, while elsewhere the obedience rate was 66 percent."
Blass' article in Mar/Apr 2002 Psychology Today also highlights this sobering comment by Milgrim in 1973:

"We do not observe compliance to authority merely because it is a transient cultural or historical phenomenon, but because it flows from the logical necessities of social organization. If we are to have social life in any organized form - that is to say, if we are to have society - then we must have members of society amenable to organizational imperatives."

MILGRAM SET OUT TO TEST IF A CROSS-SECTION OF AMERICANS WOULD TORTURE AND KILL INNOCENT & UNKNOWN STRANGERS WITHOUT MUCH HESITATION, PROVIDED THEY WERE BEING 'OBEDIENT TO AUTHORITY'.

HENCE THE TITLE.

IN A NUTSHELL, THE OVERWHELMING ANSWER IS 'YES'. A MAJORITY WILL TORTURE & KILL PEOPLE THEY DO NOT KNOW AND WHO THEY HAVE NO PERSONAL FEAR FROM OR GRUDGE TOWARDS.

ESSENTIALLY MILGRAM'S CROSS-SECTION OF MAIN STREET AMERICANS WERE CONSCIENCE-FREE. THEY DID WHAT THEY WERE TOLD TO DO BY 'AUTHORITY' EVEN IF BLATANTLY EVIL. THEY WERE SPINELESS WHEN IT CAME TO PERSONALLY HOLDING AND DEFENDING CIVILISED VALUES.

THESE PEOPLE ARE OUR NEIGHBOURS AND COLLEAGUES IN THE US.

IN EUROPE THERE IS A WELL-WORN JOKE: THE US IS THE ONLY GREAT POWER TO RISE AND FALL WITHOUT A PERIOD OF CIVILISATION IN BETWEEN. MILGRAM'S RESEARCH SHOWS WHY. THE AVERAGE AMERICAN AS REPRESENTED IN HIS RESEARCH, HAS NO BEDROCK VALUES. FOR ALL HIS MONEY AND MATERIAL POSSESSIONS AND LAWYERS, TAX ACCOUNTANTS AND GUNS, HE IS A CULTURAL ... AND A MORAL SAVAGE. HE IS OBEDIENT ONLY TO EXTERNAL! AUTHORITY : INTERNAL CONTROLS ARE LACKING.

START BY READING THE DOZEN OR SO PAGES OF THE EPILOGUE, WHICH MAKE IT CLEAR THAT THIS STUDY IS ABOUT EVERYDAY AMERICANS, NOT WESTERNERS IN GENERAL. THESE AMERICANS ARE AS BAD AS FRANCO,THE GESTAPO, THE KGB, POL POT, IDI AMIN, SADDAM HUSSEIN AND OTHER TYRANTS OF RECENT HISTORY.

RELIVE THE MAI LAI MASSACRE THROUGH THE NYT TRANSCRIPT IN THIS EPILOGUE, OF THE FAMOUS WALLACE INTERVIEW ON CBS. LT.CALLEY OF THE US FORCES IN VIETNAM CHEERFULLY PROVED NO DIFFERENT FROM THE SS DEATH SQUADS IN EUROPE. THE SCENE DESCRIBED IS IDENTICAL - SADISTIC, RUTHLESS, MURDUROUS, BESTIAL. MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, MILGRAM EXPLAINS THAT CONTEMPORARY POLLS SHOWED THAT THE MAJORITY OF CALLEY'S FELLOW CITIZENS IN THE US SUPPORTED HIS ATROCITY. THEY RECKONED HE DID THE RIGHT THING & HE WAS NEVER BROUGHT TO JUSTICE; ANY MORE THAN SENATOR KERRY HAS BEEN.

A REVIEWER FROM THE NETHERLANDS TRIES TO IMPLY THAT MILGRAM HAD AN OPTIMISTIC VIEW OF HIS FELLOW AMERICANS AFTER THIS RESEARCH. A CAREFUL EXAMINATION OF THE BOOK PROVES THAT HE WAS PROFOUNDLY PESSIMISTIC, EVEN DESPAIRING. HE CONCLUDED THEY HARBOUR A FATAL MORAL FLAW THAT WILL BRING ABOUT THEIR DOWNFALL.

IF YOU ARE UPBEAT, AS MANY AMERICANS PROFESS TO BE, ABOUT THE GREAT 'AMERICAN WAY' AND WISH TO BELIEVE THAT AMERICANS ARE SOME KIND OF 'CHOSEN PEOPLE' BELOVED BY GOD, THIS RESEARCH WILL BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR BELIEFS.

Stanley Milgram's book is a mind-blower.

Not so much in its insights into everyday life but, in its insights into what normal people are truly capable of doing - no room for argument.

To check out the nature of his work go to w3 dot stanleymilgram dot com and see the Stanley Milgram Basics section of the site. (reason for cryptic site address above is because this here online retailer seems to frown on such data)

Here's some quote's from Milgram (who sadly, died at age 51yrs) (- see the above mentined site for more quotes)

"...The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act." (1974)

[From Milgram's reply to Baumrind's ethical critique of the obedience experiments] "I started with the belief that every person who came to the laboratory was free to accept or to reject the dictates of authority. This view sustains a conception of human dignity insofar as it sees in each man a capacity for choosing his own behavior. And as it turned out, many subjects did, indeed, choose to reject the experimenter's commands, providing a powerful affirmation of human ideals." (1964)

I wonder if other books that deal with issues relating to mass actions of evil, allow for the truly scientific insights given to us by Stanley Milgram?

This book presents a mind-blowing revelation on every page, and yet you will recognize everything in it from your everyday life. That is what makes it so chilling. Milgram demonstrates in definitive experiments how typical people recruited from off the street can, using no more than a veneer of authority, easily be persuaded to commit torture and even murder on innocent victims. The book thereby essentially explains the psychological mechanics of the Nazi and other concentration camps, the Death Squads in El Salvador and across the World, and the many other forms of atrocity that have become so characteristic of the 20th Century, this "Century of barbed wire and watchtowers". Ever wonder how you can find air force pilots willing to drop the bombs to start a nuclear holocaust? Answer: It's the easiest thing in the World! A certain percentage of the population will have the proper psychological profile, and you just select them. If psychologists and social scientists really wanted to know what are the ruling principles of civilization and what are the sources of so many of its ills, they'd be running experiments like Milgram's year-round in labs across the planet. Instead, very little work of this kind has since been done. Why? Because it's considered "ethically questionable"! In a classic case of "kill the messenger", the very man who shows us concretely how torture has been so thoroughly integrated into the political structure and who exposes the blatant hypocracy of our rulers, is accused of abusing his subjects and of betraying their trust! In the back of the book Milgram, by the way, faces all ethical objections head-on and refutes them all convincingly. Buy this book if you want to find out what is "really going on", but you may be upset by what you find.