Several poignant scenarios and two essays of reflection focus on a range of issues--from birth, motherhood, and partnership to hatred, cults, and the Holocaust. In this updated tenth anniversary edition, Alice Miller offers new reflections on the transformative power of childhood.

Miller incorporates psychohistorical analyses of Hitler, Stalin, and Ceausescu to reveal the links between the horrors of their childhoods and the horrors they inflicted on the world. She pleads for an awareness of society's role in child abuse and for recognition of the victim.