A Philosophy of Evil / Lars Svendsen 306 p.

I guess it was inevitable that after reading a truckload of Scandinavian crime fiction I would feel the need to read a Norwegian philosopher's take on evil. While I was reading this my husband worried that I was reverting to an obsessive Stalin/Hitler/Jack the Ripper bio phase I went through some years ago, but I think I've gotten that out of my system. I genuinely liked this book. It was much smoother reading than anything I remember from college philosophy class; I may even sort of understand Kant now! Svendsen isn't interested so much in individual horrific acts, as with serial killers, but in the evil which we are all potentially capable of. To that end, he looks at ordinary citizens and soldiers in Nazi Germany, Vietnam, and Kosovo, primarily. Very interesting.