Breaking Down the Wall of Silence

The culture that ignores roots of hatred and tyranny embedded in its own childrearing traditions, warns Miller, renders itself ripe for payback. Her analyses of the likes of Hitler and Nicolae Ceausescu lend epic significance to her point. Her disclosure of her own abuse gives her plea for truth a potent intimacy that brings the issue home to us all. She calls on society at large to condemn poisonous methods of discipline and, with the eloquence of a survivor, points the way to a liberating awareness for victims whose past still exerts a devastating grip.