How do criminals communicate with each other? Unlike the rest of us, people planning crimes can't freely advertise their goods and services, nor can they rely on formal institutions to settle disputes and certify quality. They face uniquely intense dilemmas as they grapple with the basic problems of whom to trust, how to make themselves trusted, and how to handle information without being detected by rivals or police. In this book, one of the world's leading scholars of the mafia ranges fr...

Fight, Flight, Mimic is the first systematic study of deceptive mimicry in the context of wars. Deceptive mimicry -- the manipulation of individual or group identity -- includes passing off as a different individual, as a member of a group to which one does not belong, or, for a group, to 'sign' its action as another group. Mimicry exploits the reputation of the model it mimics to avoid capture (flight), to strike undetected at the enemy (fight), or to hide behind or besmirch the ...

Like few other decisions in life, educational choices must be made by virtually every-one growing up in industrial societies. The consequences of these choices for individual lives are momentous, yet decisions about schooling can be treacherous. They are made during the teen years, at a time when personal preferences are unstable and there is littl

A groundbreaking investigation into why so many Islamic radicals are engineersThe violent actions of a few extremists can alter the course of history, yet there persists a yawning gap between the potential impact of these individuals and what we understand about them. In Engineers of Jihad, Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog uncover two unexpected facts, which they imaginatively leverage to narrow that gap: they find that a disproportionate share of Islamis...

Flight, Flight, Mimic is the first systematic study of deceptive mimicry in the context of wars. Deceptive mimicry—the manipulation of individual or group identity—includes passing off as a different individual, as a member of a group to which one does not belong, or, for a group, to "sign" its action as another group.Mimicry exploits the reputation of the model it mimics to avoid capture (flight), to strike undetected at the enemy (fight), or to hide behind or besmirch th...

The definitive firsthand account of the groundbreaking research of Philip Zimbardo—the basis for the award-winning film The Stanford Prison ExperimentRenowned social psychologist and creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment Philip Zimbardo explores the mechanisms that make good people do bad things, how moral people can be seduced into acting immorally, and what this says about the line separating good from evil.The Lucifer Effect explain...

J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (1951) is a twentieth-century classic. Despite being one of the most frequently banned books in America, generations of readers have identified with the narrator, Holden Caulfield, an angry young man who articulates the confusion, cynicism and vulnerability of adolescence with humour and sincerity.This guide to Salinger’s provocative novel offers:an accessible introduction to the text and contexts of The Catcher in t...

Few novels have had more influence on individuals and literary culture than J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Published in 1951 and intended by Salinger for adults (early drafts were published in the New Yorker and Colliers), the novel quickly became championed by youth who identified with the awkwardness and alienation of the novel’s protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Since then the book and its reclusive author have been fixtures of both popular and literary ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Unfair succinctly and persuasively recounts cutting-edge research testifying to the faulty and inaccurate procedures that underpin virtually all aspects of our criminal justice system, illustrating many with case studies.”—The Boston GlobeA child is gunned down by a police officer; an investigator ignores critical clues in a case; an innocent man confesses to a crime he did not commit; a jury acquits a killer....

How is crime to be defined? Can crime be medicalized? Can crime be explained or even excused in terms of biological or environmental conditions? Can punishment ever fit the crime? And should punishment be primarily reformative or retributive? This book is not an attempt at a kind of literary CSI and it is not directly concerned with the popular interest in forensic science. Nor is it a handbook for crime investigators. It is rather a laypersons introduction to the ways in which many crimin...

As acclaimed psychological researcher and author David Buss writes, "People are mesmerized by murder. It commands our attention like no other human phenomenon, and those touched by its ugly tendrils never forget." Though we may like to believe that murderers are pathological misfits and hardened criminals, the vast majority of murders are committed by people who, until the day they kill, would seem to be perfectly normal.David Buss's pioneering work has made major national news in ...

In 2008, Mark Stobbe was arrested on a charge of second-degree murder. After the jail door clanged shut behind him, he carefully listened to his fellow inmates and watched the functioning of the two Remand Centres in which he was imprisoned. Using theories from sociology and psychology, he interprets these observations to create some fascinating insights into Canadas jail system. Now that he has been acquitted of the murder charge against him, he is free to share these findings. Lessons from ...