From world-renowned psychologist and bestselling author of The Soul's Code , a profound examination of the roots of man's primal love/hate relationship with war. War is a timeless force in the human imagination-and, indeed, in daily life. If recent events have taught us anything, it is that peacetime is not nearly so constant and attainable as wartime. During the 5,600 years of recorded history, 14,600 wars have been fought-2 to 3 for every year of human history. War is a constant thing. And yet no one really understands why that is. In A Terrible Love of War , James Hillman, one of the central figures in psychology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, fills this great void and undertakes a groundbreaking examination of the origins, needs, and rewards of war. Moreover, in this brilliant inquiry, Hillman explores many other essential questions, such as: € Is war a necessary part of our human soul and, therefore, a necessary part of our lives? € Why do we need enemies? € What scars does warfare carve on the psyche of its soldiers? And why does it have such a permanent effect? € If war is such a "normal" part of our existence, why do we fear it so much? And alternately, how could we ever embrace a force so destructive, so wanton, and so inhuman? € Can the impulse to engage in war be tamed? Hillman asserts that "if we want war's horror to be abated so that life may go on, it is necessary to understand and imagine." A Terrible Love of War is a crucial tool to understanding war-a crucial book for us all.

"Blending case histories with myth, clinical fact with imaginative meaning, this book, with its profound appreciation of history and biography, of the arts, ideas, and culture, trains the senses to perceive the face of the soul. In papers on abandonment, nostalgia, betrayal, schism, failure, and masturbation, Hillman shows that pathology belongs intrinsically to the psyche and that it reveals the unchanging, necessary, fecund depths of human nature. A brief note on story pleads for a "story sense," a deeply therapeutic awareness of how mythic persons and archetypal events influence the psyche by conditioning perceptions, generating meanings, and shaping our lives, while another essay associates archetypal psychology with neoplatonism, the elegant, cultured, psychological vision of Plotinus, Ficino, and Vico. Together, these twelve essays and talks affirm the polyvalent, shadowed reality of the psyche and afford an example of subtle, nuanced psychological thought. For psychotherapists, analysts, counselors, and the general reader"--