On December 7th, 1941,

on the day.

On December 7th, 1941, Japan, like its infamous Axis partners, struck first and declared war afterwards.

Costly to our Navy was the loss of war vessels, airplanes and equipment, but more costly to Japan

was the effectiveness of its foul attack in immediately unifying America in its determination to fight

and win the war thrust upon it and to win the peace that will follow.

A few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a man named Abraham Maslow drives home through the streets of Brooklyn.

He's in his early 30s, but his neat mustache and slack jowls make him look older.

Or maybe it's the Tweed jacket, an occupation. mustache and slack jowls make him look older.

Or maybe it's the Tweed jacket and occupational hazard.

He's a professor at Brooklyn College.

Bazzle round the corner. Maslow rounds a corner and slows to a stop. His path is blocked.

A rag tag parade stumbles past his windshield. Ernest Boy Scouts and men in worn out uniforms doing their bit to support the war effort.

Someone waves a flag, someone else tries to keep up on a flute.

A funny thing happens to Maslow is he sits there watching.

He starts to cry. It's not the parade that upsets him. It's the sudden realization that in this most terrifying historic moment none of us has a clue. We know we want to

beat the Germans and the Japanese, but we have no idea who they are or what motivates them.

For that matter, we don't even understand ourselves.

And until we figure that out, he thinks, we're doomed to endless war. When the parade thins to nothing, he races home and starts to

write. Over the following days and weeks and years, he works out a grand theory of human motivation. It grounds all of our

impulses all of our deeds in a simple hierarchy of needs. First are survival needs

like food, water, shelter, and safety.

...