Background
Kopf, David was born on March 12, 1930 in Paterson, New Jersey, United States. Son of Morris Kopf and Ida Fishman.
( War and genocide are the two principal forms of mass ki...)
War and genocide are the two principal forms of mass killing by governments; they have claimed more than 100 million lives in the twentieth century. The height of the slaughter was reached during World War II, and one legacy of that cataclysm is the continuing threat posed by tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. Through an examination of the Holocaust (the attempt to exterminate the Jewish people) and Allied strategic bombing (the attempt to exterminate German and Japanese civilians living in cities), Eric Markusen and David Kopf aim to promote understanding of and concern about what may be the most urgent present-day threat to human survival—the willingness of national governments to plan, prepare for, and carry out the extermination of masses of innocent people.Markusen and Kopf strongly disagree with scholars who regard war and genocide as separate phenomena. They find that despite important differences, there are in fact striking parallels in the psychological, organizational, and scientific-technological factors that contributed to the adoption of these programs for mass killing. The dehumanization of the victims made it psychologically easier to carry out their extermination; the preparations for slaughter within vast bureaucracies diminished the sense of individual responsibility for these lethal policies; and the rationalization of the killing was aided by intellectuals who justified their actions on the basis of allegedly scientific principles and data.The unsettling truth, according to Markusen and Kopf, is that the majority of those involved in governmental mass killings are psychologically normal and regard themselves as patriots, rather than as mass murderers. Moreover, they find that some of the same psychosocial factors that have accounted for genocide and total war also characterize the preparations of the superpowers for the possibility of future nuclear conflicts. The authors survey dangerous global trends that appear to support continued outbreaks of genocidal killing and conclude with reflections on the prospects for preventing such tragedies.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813375320/?tag=2022091-20
( As the forerunners of Indian modernization, the communi...)
As the forerunners of Indian modernization, the community of Bengali intellectuals known as the Brahmo Samaj played a crucial role in the genesis and development of every major religious, social, and political movement in India from 1820 to 1930. David Kopf launches a comprehensive generation- to-generation study of this group in order to understand the ideological foundations of the modern Indian mind. His book constitutes not only a biographical and a sociological study of the Brahmo Samaj, but also an intellectual history of modern India that ranges from the Unitarian social gospel of Rammohun Roy to Rabindranath Tagore's universal humanism and Jessie Bose's scientism. From a variety of biographical sources, many of them in Bengali and never before used in research, the author makes available much valuable information. In his analysis of the interplay between the ideas, the consciousness, and the lives of these early rebels against the Hindu tradition, Professor Kopf reveals the subtle and intricate problems and issues that gradually shaped contemporary Indian consciousness. What emerges from this group portrait is a legacy of innovation and reform that introduced a rationalist tradition of thought, liberal political consciousness, and Indian nationalism, in addition to changing theology and ritual, marriage laws and customs, and the status of women. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691614458/?tag=2022091-20
Kopf, David was born on March 12, 1930 in Paterson, New Jersey, United States. Son of Morris Kopf and Ida Fishman.
Bachelor, New York University, 1951; Master of Arts, New York University, 1956; Doctor of Philosophy, University of Chicago, 1964.
Assistant professor of history, U. Missouri, Columbia, 1964-1967;
associate professor of history, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1967-1973;
professor of history, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, since 1973. Senior fellow American Institute Indian Studies, Calcutta, 1969-1971, Thai Universities, Asia Foundation, 1986. Visiting professor Institute Bangla Desh Studies, Rajshahi U.,1975.
Lecturer tour Australian Universities, 1982. Delegate to international seminarcommemorating Bicentenary of Asiatic Society Bengal, Calcutta, 1984. Chairman annual conference Bengal studies, U. Missouri, 1966.
Guest lecturer Thai Universities, 1986. Delegate Jawa. Nehru Centenary, London, 1989, First Ancient WorldHistory Conference, Tianjin, China, 1993.
( As the forerunners of Indian modernization, the communi...)
( War and genocide are the two principal forms of mass ki...)
Member Association Asian Studies (south Asia editor of newsletter, 1965-1968), American Institute Indian Studies (trustee 1972-1975), International Society Comparative Studies of Civilizations (executive council 1980-1986, 1st vice president 1992).
Married Mary Alice Green, June 6, 1954 (divorced 1975). Children: Sarah Ellis, Walter Seymour.