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annie_nonnymouse's review
5.0
**I won an uncorrected proof of this book through a Goodreads.com Giveaway**
At last! A book addressing that most elusive of topics-- Evil. Dr. Julia Shaw, criminologist & psychologist, is quite an expert on the subject. In this devourable book, she explores evil in all its inhuman guises--sadism, slavery, cybercrime, murder, torture, terrorism, and more-- and reveals it to be infinitely human. I enjoy Dr. Shaw's conversational style as much as I appreciate her extensive research. This book is refreshing to read because it's about more than just sensationalized stories... it's about the social, cultural, evolutionary, psychological factors which influence us all, and the ways that these influences can lead us down dark paths. If you're looking for a torrid academic deconstruction of a pivotal religious concept, this isn't the book for you. This book will show you the flawed human being behind the hideous monster you call Evil. You might even see yourself reflected in its pages.
At last! A book addressing that most elusive of topics-- Evil. Dr. Julia Shaw, criminologist & psychologist, is quite an expert on the subject. In this devourable book, she explores evil in all its inhuman guises--sadism, slavery, cybercrime, murder, torture, terrorism, and more-- and reveals it to be infinitely human. I enjoy Dr. Shaw's conversational style as much as I appreciate her extensive research. This book is refreshing to read because it's about more than just sensationalized stories... it's about the social, cultural, evolutionary, psychological factors which influence us all, and the ways that these influences can lead us down dark paths. If you're looking for a torrid academic deconstruction of a pivotal religious concept, this isn't the book for you. This book will show you the flawed human being behind the hideous monster you call Evil. You might even see yourself reflected in its pages.
christie_esau's review
3.0
I actually listened to the audio book version, so that may be somewhat of what got in the way for me, but I found that this book didn't feel as cohesive, or as psychological as I would have liked. The ties between the chapters weren't as smooth as they could have been, and the author's periodic autoethnography felt haphazard to me. Generally speaking, the concept of not labeling people/things as evil is a helpful as a philosophy, but I wanted this book to be better!
11corvus11's review against another edition
3.0
In some ways this is a difficult book to rate. There are some really good and important things that she talks about such as the just world fallacy, the problem with humans biases being incredibly inaccurate in terms of judging people, then need to not define people by the worst thing they've ever done and not allow them to have any sort of redemption, the general cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy of people's choices using examples like animal lovers who eat animals when they don't need to, and she tackles some difficult subjects like people who have pedophilia.
Treating this book as a very introductory popular psychology book for someone who's perhaps never read anything on it makes it sort of okay. But she also uses sources that have been highly criticized and she mentions that they've been criticized but then keeps going using it as a source without talking about the criticism such as the Stanford prison study. She starts each chapter with a Nietzsche quote and only quotes by him, which is an odd choice since much of her messaging is leaning towards social justice. Her handling of the topic of bestiality was terrible. Referring to sex with animals instead of it being sexual assault of animals and highlighting the justifications of those who abuse animals without any criticism. She has archaic views about animals as well such as saying fish don't feel pain which has been debunked for a very long time. And she repeatedly talks about things she doesn't seem to know much about.
She tries to talk about social justice stuff a lot which she succeeds in at times, but mostly it comes off as neoliberal sort of shallow understanding of these things. I sort of wish she would have chosen to either write a solely popular science book or a solely social justice book. I feel like maybe if she narrowed it down more in One direction or the other it might have ended up being a more comprehensive and better book.
I basically pick this up because I was liking the bad people podcast. Judging by her brief comments there about this stuff I'm not entirely surprised that I didn't love this book. But I think it could be good for people who sort of label everyone they don't like as automatically evil and to think of people in binaries of good and bad. It could help them challenge themselves in ways they may not have before.
Treating this book as a very introductory popular psychology book for someone who's perhaps never read anything on it makes it sort of okay. But she also uses sources that have been highly criticized and she mentions that they've been criticized but then keeps going using it as a source without talking about the criticism such as the Stanford prison study. She starts each chapter with a Nietzsche quote and only quotes by him, which is an odd choice since much of her messaging is leaning towards social justice. Her handling of the topic of bestiality was terrible. Referring to sex with animals instead of it being sexual assault of animals and highlighting the justifications of those who abuse animals without any criticism. She has archaic views about animals as well such as saying fish don't feel pain which has been debunked for a very long time. And she repeatedly talks about things she doesn't seem to know much about.
She tries to talk about social justice stuff a lot which she succeeds in at times, but mostly it comes off as neoliberal sort of shallow understanding of these things. I sort of wish she would have chosen to either write a solely popular science book or a solely social justice book. I feel like maybe if she narrowed it down more in One direction or the other it might have ended up being a more comprehensive and better book.
I basically pick this up because I was liking the bad people podcast. Judging by her brief comments there about this stuff I'm not entirely surprised that I didn't love this book. But I think it could be good for people who sort of label everyone they don't like as automatically evil and to think of people in binaries of good and bad. It could help them challenge themselves in ways they may not have before.
zitronencaro's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
judymozza's review against another edition
4.0
Great referencing and illustrations of her points but this is sometimes a bit political and subjective on some topics.
bryanzk's review
4.0
Excellent book touching sooo many tabooing topics, which should have been, but seldomly had been, talked about in the society. The result of this is that it feels like an anthology of Medium articles, which might be intentional for the sake of ease to read and understand. Also because of the scarcity of research on such topics, the science interpretation doesn't look solid. That being said, it still is an important book for everyone to understand him or herself and the society as a whole.
monda16's review against another edition
funny
slow-paced
A hilarious satire about encouraging sex with children and horses.
My favorite part was the claim that we evolved higher testosterone to win Olympic medals!
My favorite part was the claim that we evolved higher testosterone to win Olympic medals!