Paranoia The madness that makes history

Luigi Zoja presents an insightful analysis of the use and misuse of paranoia throughout history and in contemporary society. Zoja combines history with depth psychology, contemporary politics and tragic literature, resulting in a clear and balanced analysis presented with rare clarity. The devastating impact of paranoia on societies is explored in detail. Focusing on the contagious aspects of paranoia and its infectious, self-replicating dynamics, Zoja takes such diverse examples as Ajax and George W. Bush, Cain and the American Holocaust, Hitler, Stalin and Othello to illustrate his argument. He reconstructs the emblematic arguments that paranoia has promoted in Western history and examines how the power of the modern media and mass communication has affected how it spreads. Paranoia clearly examines how leaders lose control of their influence, how the collective unconscious acquires an autonomous life and how seductive its effects can be – more so than any political, religious or ideological discourse. This gripping study will be essential reading for depth and analytical psychologists, and academics and students of history, cultural studies, psychology, classical studies, literary studies, anthropology and sociology.

Introduction: The Madness of Ajax. 1. What is Paranoia? 2. The Beginnings: Myth and History. 3. European Nationalism: From cultural renaissance to paranoia 4. Naive Persecutors. 5. Darkness over Europe. 6. Freud, Keynes and the Bamboozled Man. 7. Siegfried 8. The Granite Foundation and the Hour of Idiocy 9. The Man of Steel and the Final Product 10. Fire That Feeds Fire 11. Further and Further West 12. A Plan for the Twenty-first Century? 13. Inconclusive Thoughts 14. Iago’s Whisper. Bibliography.

Luigi Zoja is an analytical psychologist in private practice in Milan who lectures internationally. He is a former training analyst of the C. G. Jung Institut, Zurich, past president of CIPA (Centro Italiano di Psicologia Analitica) and former president of IAAP (International Association of Analytical Psychology). He has taught at the University of Insubria and at Beijing Normal University, and his previous books have been published in multiple languages.