Stone Cold Souls
History's Most Vicious Killers
Book Code:
C34588
ISBN:
0-313-34588-0
ISBN-13:
978-0-313-34588-3
216 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication:
7/30/2008
Availability:
In Stock
Media Type:
Hardcover
Trim Size:
6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
-
Endorsement From
David G. Myers,
Hope College:
Can we learn from humanity's worst as well as its best? By recounting many of the most gruesome and barbaric of human killings--this is not a book for faint-hearted bedtime reading--psychologist and crime consultant Gregory Moffatt lays bare our human capacity for evil, and the life experiences and thinking that create such evil.
Description:
History's most notorious and brutal killers still enjoy fame as public fascination with their lives and their crimes continues to grow. Stone Cold Souls is a detailed examination of the most brutal killers in history. Moffatt does what he does best by looking at historical accounts of events, analyzing them from a psychological perspective, and presenting his assessment in captivating fashion. He examines different types of killers, offers case studies and historical context, and describes what sets these cases apart from other kinds of killings. Even in a day and age where pop culture has made serial crime a mainstay of movies and books, the depravity of the killers profiled in this work will still shock even a desensitized reader.
Men, women, and children alike have committed crimes so atrocious that it is hard to imagine that these events are not works of fiction. Moffatt examines the difficult questions that inevitably arise when one reads cases of unthinkable torture and cruelty. Why? Were these people simply evil or is it possible that, given other circumstances, they could have redirected their energies into more productive outlets? The author answers these questions and others and reveals the lives and crimes of these ruthless killers.
Cold Stone Killers features such well-known cases as: Andrei Chikatilo, Marc Dutroux, Herman Webster Mudgett, Charles Ng, Leonard Lake, Lawrence Bittaker, Roy Norris, Ed Gein, Edmund Kemper, Henry Lee Lucas, Gilles de Rais, Ivan the Terrible, Richard Ramirez, Holly Ann Harvey, Sandy Ketchum, Mary Bell, Jesse Pomeroy, Josef Mengele, Marshall Applewhite, Jeffrey Lundgren, David Koresh, Jim Jones, Father Oliver O'Grady, Charles Cullin, Harold Shipman, Michael Swango, Myra Hindley, Karla Homolka, Aileen Carol "Lee" Wuornos, Elizabeth Bathory, Charles Sobhraj, Albert Fish, Donald Harvey, and Dennis Rader.
Table of Contents:
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Acknowledgements
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Chapter One The Quest for Reasons
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Chapter Two Ghost Stories and Torture Chambers
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Chapter Three Murder for Sport: Serial Killers
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Chapter Four Running With the Devil
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Chapter Five Tainted Virtue: Young Killers
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Chapter Six Primum Non Nocere: Josef Mengele
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Chapter Seven Treasonous Guardians
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Chapter Eight Beauty Becomes the Beast
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Chapter Nine A Deadly Claim To Fame: Media Seekers
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Chapter Ten The Margins of Existence: The Search for a Coherent Theory of Malevolence
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Bibliography
LC Card Number:
2008009947
LCC Class:
HV6245
Dewey Class:
364
www.praeger.com/catalog/C34588.aspx
