ARCHITECTS OF THE CULTURE OF DEATH

The "Culture of Death" has become a popular phrase and is much bandied about in academic circles. Yet, for most people, its meaning remains vague and remote. DeMarco and Wiker have given the Culture of Death a clear definition and frightening immediacy. They have exposed its roots by introducing its "architects." In a scholarly, yet reader-friendly delineation of the mindsets of twenty-three influential thinkers, they have made clear and palpable the aberrant thought and malevolent intentions that have gone into shaping the culture of Death. Still, this is not a book without hope. If the culture of Death rests on a fragmented view of the person and an eclipse of God, hope for the Culture of Life rests on an understanding and restoration of the human being as a person, and the rediscovery of a benevolent God. The "Personalism" of John Paul II is an illuminating thread that runs through Architects, serving as a hopeful antidote for the stark pessimism that issues from builders of the Culture of Death.

Featured personalities: Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ayn Rand, Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, Ernst Haeckel, Karl Marx, Auguste Comte, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvior, Elisabeth Badinter, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich, Helen Gurley Brown, Margaret Mead, Alfred Kinsey, Margaret Sanger, Clarence Gamble, Alan Guttmacher, Derek Humphrey, Jack Kevorkian and Peter Singer.