Milgram Revisited: Can We still Use Milgram’s ‘Obedience to Authority’ Experiments to Explain Mass Atrocities after the Opening of the Archives? Review Essay

Abstract

Milgram’s obedience to authority experiments were conducted more than 50 years ago and can undoubtfully be considered one of the most important but also most controversial studies ever conducted. In the last few years (2011-2015), a book on Milgram was published, a film made and 4 international peer-reviewed journals dedicated a special issue to Milgram’s experiments. All this triggered by the opening of the Yale archives which gave access to Milgram’s personal notes. This review essay has three aims: to analyse to what extent this new information sheds new light on the Milgram experiments; to assess what we can actually learn from Milgram’s experiments and to discuss whether his findings can help us understand mass atrocities such as the Holocaust.