Books like Understanding Violence by Elizabeth Kandel Englander

A leading psychologist profiles the killer in us all with this provocative, trailblazing workThough we may choose to believe that murderers are pathological misfits or hardened criminals, evolutionary psychologist and acclaimed author David Buss has some sobering news. Based on years of unprecedented studies conducted around the globe and filled with riveting accounts of specific murders, The Murderer Next Door shows that the vast majority of murders are committed by ordinary people—and that the impulse to kill, far from being an aberration, has been hardwired by evolution into every human brain, where it awaits triggers that are stunningly familiar. Packed with revelatory information that overturns so much of what we think about ourselves, this riveting look into the underworld of the human mind will enthrall the legions of readers drawn to criminal profiling and true crime.

A comprehensive study of criminal thinking patterns, based on surveys of over 20,000 prisoners in the 1970s, that argues crime results from deliberate choice.

Michelle Oberman and Cheryl L. Meyer don’t write for news magazines or prime-time investigative television shows, but the stories they tell hold the same fascination. When Mothers Kill is compelling. In a clear, direct fashion the authors recount what they have learned from interviewing women imprisoned for killing their children. Readers will be shocked and outraged—as much by the violence the women have endured in their own lives as by the violence they engaged in—but they will also be informed and even enlightened. Oberman and Meyer are leading authorities on their subject. Their 2001 book, Mothers Who Kill Their Children, drew from hundreds of newspaper articles as well as from medical and social science journals to propose a comprehensive typology of maternal filicide. In that same year, driven by a desire to test their typology—and to better understand child-killing women not just as types but as individuals—Oberman and Meyer began interviewing women who had been incarcerated for the crime. After conducting lengthy, face-to-face interviews with forty prison inmates, they returned and selected eight women to speak with at even greater length. This new book begins with these stories, recounted in the matter-of-fact words of the inmates themselves. There are collective themes that emerge from these individual accounts, including histories of relentless interpersonal violence, troubled relationships with parents (particularly with mothers), twisted notions of romantic love, and deep conflicts about motherhood. These themes structure the books overall narrative, which also includes an insightful examination of the social and institutional systems that have failed these women. Neither the mothers nor the authors offer these stories as excuses for these crimes.

Ghosts from the Nursery argues that abuse and neglect during the first two years of life can permanently dull the infant brain’s capacity for empathy, trust, and intelligence, laying the groundwork for later violent behavior.