Peckham's Chronicle of Fear: A Double-Edged Sword in the Annals of Governance

"It is well understood that fear is a coercive tool used to buttress authoritarian regimes, but Peckham argues that fear also underpinned the development of liberal democracy: our ideas about individual freedom emerged not only in opposition to autocracy, but out of a fear of other people, of mob rule, of anarchy."

In his a book, “Fear: An Alternative History of the World", Robert Peckham, a historian who studies how fear has influenced human history, traces the role of fear in various events and phenomena, such as the witch hunts, the colonial conquests, the world wars, the Cold War, the AIDS epidemic, and the covid-19 pandemic.

Peckham shows how fear can be used by those in power to manipulate people's emotions and actions, but also how fear can be a positive force that helps us to survive and change. Nevertheless, Peckham’s narrow focus on Western history and its lack of a clear thesis or conclusion deprives his book of a universal application.

Based on The Time's article "Fear by Robert Peckham review: why are we so plagued by fear?"

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