The concept of authoritarianism, first defined in The Authoritarian Personality published in 1950, has since been treated in a bewildering array of studies that have explored both its narrow psychological meaning and its broader social implications. In this volume, authors John P. Kirscht and Ronald C. Dillehay have provided a much-needed review of this growing subject, summarizing and evaluating about 260 studies that have appeared to date.

Kirscht and Dillehay differentiate between the psychological and the sociological approach to authoritarianism, tracing the historical...