Book, Dark Part of Ourselves, A: A History of the Wicked[LS]

"Reading Roudinesco is an urgent task." Catherine Clément, Le Magazine Littéraire Prince of the wicked, Marquis de Sade advocated a break with the laws that govern society by publicizing sodomy, incest and crime in his books. Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, told without reservation how he became the greatest massacrer of all time. Liduina of Schiedam, canonized in 1890, imposed terrible suffering on her body for decades. In this book, the prestigious historian and psychoanalyst Elisabeth Roudinesco presents and interprets the history of the perverse in the West through its emblematic figures: from Bluebeard and the mystical saints in the Middle Ages, to the phenomenon of Nazism, pedophiles and terrorists today. It shows how perversion, defined in each era in a different way, displays what we never cease to hide: the dark part of ourselves, the negativity present in each one. And he still reflects on its eradication. Wouldn't eliminating perversion mean destroying the distinction between good and evil that underpins civilization?