Why We Kill

Infanticide, serial killings, war, terrorism, abortion, honour killings, euthanasia, suicide bombings and genocide; all involve taking of life. Put most simply, all involve killing one or more other people. Yet cultural context influences heavily how one perceives all of these, and indeed, some readers of this paragraph may already have thought: 'But surely that doesn't belong with those others, that's not really killing.' Why We Kill examines violence in many of its manifestations, exploring how culture plays a role in people's understanding of violent action. From the first chapter, which tries to understand multiple forms of domestic homicide including infanticide, filicide, spousal homicide and honour killings, to the final chapter's bone-chilling account of the massacre at Murambi in Rwanda, this fascinating book makes compelling reading.

Why do some men, women and even children assault, batter, rape, mutilate and murder? In his stunning new book, the Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Rhodes provides a startling and persuasive answer. Why They Killexplores the discoveries of a maverick American criminologist, Dr. Lonnie Athens -- himself the child of a violent family -- which challenge conventional theories about violent behavior. By interviewing violent criminals in prison, Dr. Athens has identified a pattern of social development common to all seriously violent people -- a four-stage process he calls "violentization": -- First, brutalization: A young person is forced by violence or the threat of violence to submit to an aggressive authority figure; he witnesses the violent subjugation of intimates, and the authority figure coaches him to use violence to settle disputes. -- Second, belligerency: The dispirited subject, determined to prevent his further violent subjugation, heeds his coach and resolves to resort to violence. -- Third, violent performances: His violent response to provocation succeeds, and he reads respect and fear in the eyes of others. -- Fourth, virulency: Exultant, he determines from now on to utilize serious violence as a means of dealing with people -- and he bonds with others who believe as he does. Since all four stages must be fully experienced in sequence and completed to produce a violent individual, we see how intervening to interrupt the process can prevent a tragic outcome. Rhodes supports Athens's theory with historical evidence and shows how it explains such violent careers as those of Perry Smith (the killer central to Truman Capote's narrative In Cold Blood), Mike Tyson, "preppy rapist" Alex Kelly, and Lee Harvey Oswald. Why They Kill challenges with devastating evidence the theory that violent behavior is impulsive, unconsciously motivated and predetermined. It offers compelling insights into the terrible, ongoing dilemma of criminal violence that plagues families, neighborhoods, cities and schools.

Former Baltimore City homicide detective Kelvin Sewell has seen it all. Gang members burned alive; a baby unceremoniously stuffed into the ground by its own mother; a sex offender who killed a child in a delusional jealous rage.The constant grind of bearing witness to violent death has given Sewell an unprecedented perspective into the minds of killers.He sat in the Baltimore Police Department's interview room with 14-year-old Devon Richardson as the teen tried to explain why he shot a woman he didn't know in the back of the head. He watched the father of 17-year-old Nicole Edmonds cry over the corpse of his dead daughter, murdered for a cellphone.But now for the first time Sewell has decided to share the insights and the pain, the dehumanizing effects of crime and waves of psychic despair and social dysfunction in his groundbreaking book, Why Do We Kill?"I think people deserve to know the truth," said Sewell, a 20-year veteran of Baltimore City's police department. "They need to get a sense of why people kill in Baltimore."I want people to see what we see as detectives," he explained. "I think there are misconceptions about crime in Baltimore, and I hope this book will clear them up."The book recounts some of the most notorious homicide cases in Baltimore in the past decade, all told from the perspective of the cop who worked them.Joining forces with Sewell is award-winning investigative reporter Stephen Janis, who covered City Hall for the now-defunct Baltimore Examiner and is founder of the award-winning news website Investigative Voice."What makes this book different is the collaborative voice," said Janis. "Kelvin would discuss his thoughts on the cases and I then tried to tell the story by adding the context that comes naturally with being a reporter."Janis's colleague at Investigative Voice, reporter and political scientist Alan Z. Forman, served as editor for the project.Janis is no stranger to the Baltimore crime scene, winning a string of prestigious awards for his crime reporting, including two consecutive Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association awards in Category A for his series on the murders of sex workers and his investigation into the high number of unsolved killings in Baltimore.

This book examines violence in many of its manifestations, exploring how culture plays a role in people's understanding of violent action covering topics such as infanticide, filicide, spousal homicide and honour killings.

This “fact-filled and amusing trek through nature’s dark side” (Kirkus Reviews) reveals the fascinating, weird, and often perverted ways that Mother Nature fends only for herself. It may be a wonderful world, but as Dan Riskin (host of the Animal Planet’s TV show Monsters Inside Me) explains, it’s also a dangerous, disturbing, and disgusting one. At every turn, it seems, living things are trying to eat us, poison us, use our bodies as their homes, or have us spread their eggs. In Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You, Riskin is our tour guide through the natural world at its most gloriously ruthless. Using the seven deadly sins as a road map, Riskin offers dozens of jaw-dropping examples that illuminate how brutal nature can truly be. From slothful worms that hide in your body for up to thirty years to wrathful snails with poisonous harpoons that can kill you in less than five minutes to lustful ducks that have orgasms faster than you can blink, these fascinating accounts reveal the candid truth about “gentle” Mother Nature’s true colors. Riskin’s passion for the strange and his enthusiastic expertise bring Earth’s most fascinating fauna and flora into vivid focus. Through his adventures—which include sliding on his back through a thick soup of bat guano just to get face-to-face with a vampire bat, befriending a parasitic maggot that has taken root in his head, and coming to grips with having offspring of his own—Riskin makes unexpected discoveries not just about the world all around us but also about the ways this brutal world has shaped us as humans and what our responsibilities are to this terrible, wonderful planet we call home.

This is an ethnographic examination and an appraisal of the Cambodian genocide under Pol Pot based on the author's long fieldwork in the area.

For much of his thirties, Jesse Bering thought he was probably going to kill himself. He was a successful psychologist and writer, with books to his name and bylines in major magazines. But none of that mattered. The impulse to take his own life remained. At times it felt all but inescapable. Bering survived. And in addition to relief, the fading of his suicidal thoughts brought curiosity. Where had they come from? Would they return? Is the suicidal impulse found in other animals? Or is our vulnerability to suicide a uniquely human evolutionary development? In Suicidal, Bering answers all these questions and more, taking us through the science and psychology of suicide, revealing its cognitive secrets and the subtle tricks our minds play on us when we’re easy emotional prey. Scientific studies, personal stories, and remarkable cross-species comparisons come together to help readers critically analyze their own doomsday thoughts while gaining broad insight into a problem that, tragically, will most likely touch all of us at some point in our lives. But while the subject is certainly a heavy one, Bering’s touch is light. Having been through this himself, he knows that sometimes the most effective response to our darkest moments is a gentle humor, one that, while not denying the seriousness of suffering, at the same time acknowledges our complicated, flawed, and yet precious existence. Authoritative, accessible, personal, profound—there’s never been a book on suicide like this. It will help you understand yourself and your loved ones, and it will change the way you think about this most vexing of human problems.

How do you get away with the murder of 11 million people? The answer is simple—and disturbing. You lie to them. Learn how you can become an informed, passionate citizen who demands honesty and integrity from your leaders. In this nonpartisan New York Times bestselling book, Andy Andrews emphasizes that seeking and discerning the truth is of critical importance, and that believing lies is the most dangerous thing you can do. You’ll be challenged to become a more careful student of the past, seeking accurate, factual accounts of events that illuminate choices our world faces now. By considering how the Nazi German regime was able to carry out over eleven million institutional killings between 1933 and 1945, Andrews advocates for an informed population that demands honesty and integrity from its leaders and from each other. This short, thought-provoking book poses questions like: What happens to a society in which truth is absent? How are we supposed to tell the difference between the “good guys" and the “bad guys”? How does the answer to this question affect our country, families, faith, and values? Does it matter that millions of ordinary citizens aren't participating in the decisions that shape the future of our country? Which is more dangerous: politicians with ill intent, or the too-trusting population that allows such people to lead them? This is a wake-up call: we must become informed, passionate citizens or suffer the consequences of our own ignorance and apathy. We can no longer measure a leader’s worth by the yardsticks provided by the left or the right. Instead, we must use an unchanging standard: the pure, unvarnished truth.