Paranoia is an underlying theme in political life. While healthy suspicion is invaluable to leaders, extreme cases are disastrous for citizens and nations alike. Arguing that humans have a natural tendency toward paranoia based on the fear of strangers and the need for friends, Robins and Post (When Illness Strikes the Leader: The Dilemma of the Captive King, LJ 2/15/93) examine the role of paranoia in the political context. They first discuss the basic elements of the paranoid condition, then explore past paranoid episodes (Salem witch hunts,) paranoid societies (the Dobu society of New Guinea), and conspiracy thinking. Along the way, they examine the paranoid regimes of Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Joseph Stalin, and Adolf Hitler as well as those of Jim Jones, David Koresh, and Middle East terrorists. The result is a fine complement to Anton Neumayr's Dictators in the Mirror of Medicine: Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin (Medi-Ed Pr., 1995).

Paranoia is not an obscure mental state afflicting some individuals but a widespread condition of modern societies, say the authors of this engrossing book. Robins and Post describe the paranoid personality, explain why paranoia is part of human evolutionary history, and examine the conditions that must exist before the message of the paranoid takes root in a vulnerable population, leading to mass movements and genocidal violence.