ADDITIONAL PRAISE FOR THE NEW EVIL

“Dr. Michael Stone's classic book The Anatomy of Evil has provided the most detailed and comprehensive description of psychopathic behavior available in contemporary psychiatric literature. The present volume, written by him in collaboration with Dr. Gary Brucato, further deepens and expands the precise presentation of the entire spectrum of psychopathy, proposes a comprehensive set of a ‘Gradations of Evil’ scale, and thus makes a fundamental contribution to the diagnostic and prognostic evaluation of this pathology. A major, disturbing finding emerges from this study: the increase of extremely destructive, violent individual criminal behavior since the 1960s in this country and, to a lesser degree, in other parts of the world. This book challenges the reader to become concerned about the increase of evil that we are witnessing, to reflect on its causes, and to recognize our collective responsibility to confront this development. It is a must-read for all mental health professionals and for the educated citizen alert to our social problems.”

—Otto Kernberg, MD, professor of psychiatry at the Weill Cornell Medical College, and training and supervising psychoanalyst at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research

“The New Evil is a fascinating and disturbing addition to the study of violent crime and its motivations. Stone and Brucato explore the twenty-two gradations of evil and compare earlier felonious acts to the abrupt escalation and broadened diversity of the new era of violence that arrived in the 1960s. The New Evil merits inclusion on the reference shelf alongside the classics by Hare and Cleckley.”

—Diane Fanning, author of Bitter Remains and Edgar® Award finalist

“In this impressive book, Stone and Brucato provide one of the most comprehensive, conceptually clear frameworks on the typology of violence. Using extensive case studies, they explore and offer insight into different motives and patterns of homicides and other violent behavior. This book sharpens and enhances our understanding of violence and psychopathology of evil acts like no other resource.”

—Ali Khadivi, PhD, clinical and forensic psychologist and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

“The varieties of evil encountered in the commission of serious crimes can easily defy understanding. The first step toward making sense of all of this is through the process of classification. Identifying the critical elements that things have in common in order to classify them into categories helps to impose order on a chaotic, mystifying, and often horrifying aspect of human behavior. By dividing motivations for murder and other serious crimes into twenty-two well-defined gradations that range from the least evil (killing in self-defense) to evil at its most extreme (murder in the context of torture), Stone and Brucato's excellent book The New Evil provides readers with the tools to tease apart the motivations underlying violent crime acts and to help make the unfathomable more understandable.”

—Michael B. First, MD, editorial consultant on the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders