Father Mercer

Book excerpt: The environment within which humans interact has changed dramatically since the Industrial Revolution. However, their expectations stem from the same hopes and dreams people have had from the beginning of humankind. When Men Revolt and Why encourages readers to look closer and more deeply into the relationships between humans and the institutions that have originated to help them realize their full potential. The contributors not only examine people, but also the need to change institutions that have outworn their usefulness. When institutions inhibit rather than facilitate everyone's desire to live a full life, the result is likely to be violence. This book offers the ideas of many people who have tried to dig deeper into basic causes of violence. Included in this volume are selections by Aristotle, Tocqueville./Marx and Engels, and Brinton. The ideas they espoused still hold vitality. In his new introduction, James Davies talks about the circumstances under which this book was originally published. In Vietnam, a people were fighting for their autonomy. In the United States, many Americans were protesting against American involvement in the Vietnam War. Blacks were marching for their civil rights. Women were fighting for equality. Time has tempered these conflicts. Davies maintains that we remain ignorant of the elemental forces that impel people and nations to resort to violence. We are usually surprised by their anger and shocked by their violence. Davies asserts that we need to learn more about how humans respond to change so as to prepare ourselves for such responses to change. When Men Revolt and Why is as timely as ever as we deal with uncertainty in various areas of the world-- the former Yugoslavia, the Middle East, and Ireland, among others. It is especially pertinent for political scientists, historians, and sociologists.