Harle, Vilho

Vilho Harle (born 1947 in Nilsiä) is a Professor of International Relations at University of Lapland in Finland. He was a visiting fellow in 1996–1997 at the Centre for International Studies, the London School of Economics and Political Science. Harle specializes in analysis of concepts of social order in different cultures, including their moral principles and political structures. He has authored or edited more than ten books and scientific journal issues, including Ideas of Social Order in the Ancient World (Greenwood Press, 1998). In his books, Prof. Vilho Harle conducts studies of culturally significant philosophical, religious and literary works that propagate these ideas. By delimiting a theme in Western political thought and history that constructs the "I" and the "thou" in terms of good and evil, the book [Enemy with a Thousand Faces by Vilho Harle] identifies and delimits a tendency to portray the Other as an enemy, evil incarnate dehumanized by a combination of religious and political ideas. The tradition of understanding the Self and the Other as the vehicles of good and evil is reproduced in thought, speech, and action and constitutes a continuous tradition from ancient Iranian Zoroastrianism, through Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. — David Boucher, Cardiff University