The authoritative guide to ensuring science and technology make life on Earth better, not worse.

Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton is a psychiatrist and author, currently at Columbia University, whose books include Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima, which won a National Book Award, and most recently Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry.

Articles by Robert Jay Lifton

The US presidential candidates are not confronting the nuclear threat that haunts the world

By Robert Jay Lifton | Analysis, Nuclear Weapons

Oppenheimer’s tragedy—and ours

By Robert Jay Lifton | Personal Essay, Special Topics

trump blowing coronavirus dandelion covid pandemic

Rejecting survival: How Trumpist denials of the COVID catastrophe impede recovery and renewal

By Robert Jay Lifton | Analysis, Biosecurity

atomic bomb memorial mound hiroshima

Atomic bomb survivors—A model for us in COVID-19 era

By Robert Jay Lifton | Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Nuclear Weapons, Opinion

"The Angel of Death," sculpture on a funeral gondola, Venice. Photo by Paolo Monti, 1951.

The psychological pandemic: Can we confront our death anxiety?

By Robert Jay Lifton, Charles B. Strozier | Biosecurity, Climate Change, Nuclear Risk

Hiroshima blast and fire damage, US Strategic Bombing Survey map.

Hiroshima and COVID-19

By Robert Jay Lifton, Charles B. Strozier | Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Nuclear Weapons

Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant Units 1 & 2 cooling towers and containment buildings.

The false promise of nuclear power in an age of climate change

By Robert Jay Lifton, Naomi Oreskes | Climate Change, Opinion

Mind and habitat: Nuclear and climate threats, and the possibility of hope

By Robert Jay Lifton | Analysis, Climate Change, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Nuclear Weapons

The dimensions of contemporary war and violence: How to reclaim humanity from a continuing revolution in the technology of killing

By Robert Jay Lifton | Nuclear Weapons