Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed and My
Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend
By Barbara Oakley
Amazon link and reviews:
Have you ever heard of a person who
left you wondering, "How could someone be so twisted? So evil?"
Prompted by clues in her sister’s diary after her mysterious death,
author Barbara Oakley takes the reader inside the head of the kinds
of malevolent people you know, perhaps all too well, but could never
understand.
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Borne out of a quest to understand her
sister Carolyn's lifelong sinister behavior (which, systems engineer
Oakley suggests, may have been compounded by childhood polio), the
author sets out on an exploration of evil, or Machiavellian,
individuals. Drawing on the advances in brain imaging that have
illuminated the relationship of emotions, genetics and the brain
(with accompanying imaging scans), Oakley collects detailed case
histories of famed evil geniuses such as Slobodan Milosevic and Mao
Zedong, interspersed with a memoir of Carolyn's life. Oakley posits
that they all had borderline personality disorder or antisocial
personality disorder, a claim she supports with evidence from
scientists' genetic and neurological research. All the people she
considers, Oakley notes, are charming on the surface but capable of
deeply malign behavior (traits similar to those found in some
personality disorders), and her analysis attributes these traits to
narcissism combined with cognitive and emotional disturbances that
lead them to believe they are behaving in a genuinely altruistic way.
Disturbing, for sure, but with her own personal story informing her
study, Oakley offers an accessible account of a group of psychiatric
disorders and those affected by them. Illus. (Oct.)
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Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All
rights reserved.
Review
"A fascinating scientific and
personal exploration of the roots of evil, filled with human insight
and telling detail."
--Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor,
Harvard University, and author of The Language Instinct, How the Mind
Works, and The Stuff of Thought
"'Scientific non-fiction'
and 'page turner' aren’t two phrases I’d expect in the same
sentence, but for the remarkable Evil Genes, they fit."
--William
A. Wulf, President Emeritus, National Academy of Engineering
