David Livingstone Smith’s 'Less than Human' part of Duke University display on Nuremberg Trials

The J. Michael Goodson Law Library at Duke University has displayed UNE Philosophy Professor David Livingstone Smith's award-winning book Less Than Human:  Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others as part of a display on the Nuremberg Trials. The Goodson Law Library's J. Marshall Doswell, Jr. Nuremberg Trials Collection is a collection of books and memorabilia relating to the trial and its legacy. Currently on display in the Riddick Rare Book and Special Collections Room are recent additions to the collection. Most books on display have a legal theme and many were written by attorneys involved in the trials; several focus on the psychological aspects of defendants' lives and the nature and causes of evil. Still others examine the legacy of the trial and how it led to a heightening of social consciousness and increased moral and political recognition of the idea that a court of law is capable of sanctioning the commission of international crimes. Read more about the display.

Smith's Less than Human was winner of the Cleveland Foundation's 77th Annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for non-fiction. Smith is also the author of Why We Lie:  The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind and The Most Dangerous Animal:  Human Nature and the Origins of War.