The Anatomy of Evil, Michael H. Stone, MD
The Anatomy of Evil, Michael H. Stone, MD
16 Rating(s)
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The Anatomy of Evil

Author: Michael H. Stone, MD

Narrator: Charles Constant

Unabridged: 16 hr 3 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/19/2018


Synopsis

In this groundbreaking book, renowned psychiatrist Michael H. Stone explores the concept and reality of evil from a new perspective. In an in-depth discussion of the personality traits and behaviors that constitute evil across a wide spectrum, Dr. Stone takes a clarifying scientific approach to a topic that for centuries has been inadequately explained by religious doctrines.

Stone has created a twenty-two-level hierarchy of evil behavior, which loosely reflects the structure of Dante's Inferno. Basing his analysis on the detailed biographies of more than 600 violent criminals, he traces two salient personality traits that run the gamut from those who commit crimes of passion to perpetrators of sadistic torture and murder.

One trait is narcissism, as exhibited in people who are so self-centered that they have little or no ability to care about their victims. The other is aggression, the use of power over another person to inflict humiliation, suffering, and death.

What do psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience tell us about the minds of those whose actions could be described as evil? And what will that mean for the rest of us? Stone discusses how an increased understanding of the causes of evil will affect the justice system. He predicts a day when certain persons can safely be declared salvageable and restored to society and when early signs of violence in children may be corrected before potentially dangerous patterns become entrenched.

About Michael H. Stone, MD

Michael H. Stone, MD, is professor of clinical psychiatry at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is the author of ten books, including Personality Disorders: Treatable and Untreatable, and over two hundred professional articles and book chapters. From 2006 to 2008, he was the host of Discovery Channel's series Most Evil. He has been featured in the New York Times, Psychology Today, the Christian Science Monitor, CNN, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, the New York Post, the London Times, the BBC, and Newsday, among many other media outlets.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lolly K Dandeneau on December 14, 2009

I loved reading this book! I enjoyed the series, Most Evil. I am fascinated by the psychology of such people. It is interesting to read that several killers had injured their head when young. There must be a connection to brain trauma in some cases. Of course, in my heart I believe some people just......more

Goodreads review by Chandra on November 14, 2017

I have always been fascinated with how the human mind works - especially in the cases of abnormal psychology and what actually causes a person to be "evil" or how they can justify the actions they've taken - rape, murder, manipulation, etc. Nature vs. Nurture has been a debate that's been going on f......more

Goodreads review by Seth on October 15, 2014

My favorite dubious conclusion was that serial killers who have issues with women start off killing cats because cats have faces like beautiful women. Not entirely made up of bad arguments, but some of his ideas are definitely outdated. Also the rating system is entirely too subjective and without an......more

Goodreads review by Michele on September 01, 2015

Prepare for a journey though the dark side with today's most widely recognized forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Michael Stone. After years (and hundreds of killers studied) Stone created the Graduations of Evil Scale, and this book is his explanation of the process. The Anatomy of Evil is intense, featuri......more

Goodreads review by Ingrid on September 23, 2017

Fantastic! I LOVED this book. I am a forensic psychiatrist and so work with a lot of people on this spectrum of "evil". This book gave overviews of several different cases, where the author (Dr. Michael Stone, a forensic psychiatrist) had made a gradations of evil scale. There was a lot of discussio......more