Robert K. Ressler

Tom Shachtman

The FBI expert who coined the phrase "serial killer" reveals how he used evidence from the crime scene to assemble a psychological profile and capture some of the most dangerous killers in the country, in a chilling crimefighter's memoir. Reissue.

My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI

Whoever Fights Monsters

Shiya Ribowsky

A forensic investigator who led the effort to identify victims of the World Trade Center attack describes the ways in which he and his team were able to work through the harrowing aspects of their duties by bringing closure to grieving families.

Behind the Scenes at the World's Largest Medical Examiner's Office

Dead Center

un intento de comprender a los asesinos en serie

Dentro del monstruo

The authors share their experiences on recent cases and their efforts to understand criminal minds around the globe

Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Serial Killers

I Have Lived in the Monster

In The Inarticulate Society, Thomas Shachtman persuasively argues that Americans have lost the ability to respond to other points of view - to argue - without coming swiftly to blows. His case is forcefully punctuated by the rising tide of political violence in America and the hateful and intolerant speech that appears to incite it. We are in danger of moving our political debates from the Senate chamber to the streets, in the process of losing the social stability needed for a working democracy. Shachtman pins the blame for this decline on the jargon-spouting "specialists" in the professions and academia, who use parochial vocabulary to erect linguistic barriers between themselves and "ordinary" citizens; on teachers who are barely articulate themselves; on the pervasiveness of popular entertainment geared to the lowest common denominator; on insipid advertising and marketing campaigns that deliberately bypass reason to appeal to emotions; and especially on our political leaders who find it easier to play the demagogue than to give substantive explanations of policy choices. Shachtman proposes a concrete, multifaceted program for rehabilitating eloquence through the constructive use of media together with political and educational reform.

Eloquence and Culture in America

The Inarticulate Society

A behind-the-scenes look at the notorious murder of Cleveland's Marilyn Steele by her husband Judge Robert Steele and a set of hired killers

Justice is Served

How the Wealthy Paid for and Profited from America's Revolution

The Founding Fortunes

A city with eight million people has eight million ways to die For fifteen years, Shiya Ribowsky worked as a medicolegal investigator in New York City’s medical examiner’s office—the largest, most sophisticated organization of its kind in the world. Utilizing his background in medicine, he led the investigations of more than eight thousand individual deaths, becoming a key figure in some of New York’s most bizarre death cases and eventually taking charge of the largest forensic investigation ever attempted: identifying the dead in the aftermath of the September 11 tragedies. Now, in this mesmerizing book, Ribowsky pulls back the curtain on the New York City’s medical examiner’s office, giving an enthralling, never-before-seen glimpse into death and the city. Born and raised in New York City’s orthodox Jewish community, Ribowsky seems an unlikely candidate for this macabre profession. Nevertheless he has forsaken a promising career of medical work with the living, descending instead into the realm of the dead, enticed by the challenge of confronting death on a daily basis. Taking you through the vermin-infested Bowery flophouses and posh Upper East Side apartments of the city’s dead, Ribowsky explores in gruesome detail the skeletons that hang in the Big Apple’s closets. Combing through the autopsy room, he also exposes the grim secrets that only a scalpel and a dead body can tell and explains how forensic investigation does not merely solve crimes—it saves lives. But it is in the aftermath of September 11 that the ME’s office is handed its biggest challenge: to identify as many of the fallen as possible. With poignant descriptions, Ribowsky provides a dramatic account of the office’s diligent and unflappable work with the families of the victims, helping them emerge from the ashes of this tragedy while displaying the strength, grit, intelligence, and compassion that Americans expect from true New Yorkers. At once compelling and heartbreaking, Dead Center is a story of New York unlike any other, blending the haunting with the sublime, while painting a striking portrait of death (and life) in the city that never sleeps.

The man who coined the phrase "serial killer" shares not only his experiences on recent international cases, but also his efforts to understand criminal minds around the globe, and explains why serial murder is happening in previously unaffected countries. 40,000 first printing. Tour.

A Report From The Abyss

To Be Or Not to Be Amish

Rumspringa

Patrick Reynolds

Fascinating Illuminating stunning detail. Chicago Tribune Fascinating insight into the evolution of a family over three generations that is simply a good read panoramic sweep, bitter irony and tragic touches. Detroit Free Press Fascinating insider's view of three generations of the R. J. Reynolds tobacco family compelling. Richmond Times-Dispatch An altogether fascinating story [that] quickly builds speed and interest and becomes an absorbing story of fortune and misfortune. Washington Post Book World Readers of this captivating account may need to remind themselves that it is not fiction. There are colorful characters, a family rising from humble beginnings to attain fabulous wealth and power, scandal and tragedy wrought by excess and an irony-laden finale. Publishers Weekly A courageous and worthwhile book. More than an entertainment, it documents the danger of parents who confuse money with love. New York Times Book Review * * * The Gilded Leaf is the riveting, dramatic saga of the R. J. Reynolds tobacco family, one of America's richest and most intensely private clans. R.J. was the original founder of the company that became part of RJR Nabisco, which in 1988 was involved in the largest business takeover in history. Spanning three generations, the Reynolds's story moves from the triumphs of founder and corporate genius R. J. to the dissipation, scandal, and tragedy that plagued his children and grandchildren. There is a redemptive close, with grandson Patrick Reynolds founding Smokefree America and becoming a leading anti-smoking advocate. The Gilded Leaf presents, for the first time, a complete account of the family who captured, spent and redeemed the American dream.For more information, please visit, www.tobaccofree.org/book/.

Triumph, Tragedy, and Tobacco: Three Generations of the R. J. Reynolds Family and Fortune

The Gilded Leaf

Len Colodny

This groundbreaking book chronicles the little-understood evolution of the neoconservative movement—from its birth as a rogue insurgency in the Nixon White House through its ascent to full and controversial control of America's foreign policy in the Bush years. In eye-opening detail, The Forty Years War documents the neocons' four-decade campaign to seize the reins of American foreign policy: the undermining of Richard Nixon's outreach to the Communist bloc nations; the success at halting détente during the Ford and Carter years; the uneasy but effectual alliance with Ronald Reagan; and the determined, and ultimately successful, campaign to overthrow Saddam Hussein—no matter the cost.Drawing upon recently declassified documents, hundreds of hours of interviews, and long-obscured White House tapes, The Forty Years War delves into the political and intellectual development of some of the most fascinating political figures of the last four decades. It describes the complex, three-way relationship of Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Alexander Haig, and unravels the actions of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz over the course of seven presidencies. And it reveals the role of the mysterious Pentagon official Fritz Kraemer, a monocle-wearing German expatriate whose unshakable faith in military power, distrust of diplomacy, moralistic faith in American goodness, and warnings against "provocative weakness" made him the hidden geopolitical godfather of the neocon movement. The authors' insights into Kraemer's influence on the neocons—will change the public understanding of the conduct of government in our time.

Forty Years War

"Fascinating history, showing how the city has been molded by the edifice complexes of risk-takers. The stuff of grand comedy." -Business Week

The Great Real Estate Dynasties of New York

Skyscraper Dreams

The dreadful global conflagration known as the Second World War was more than the clashing of great armies on bloody battlefields. A different kind of war was being waged in the secret laboratories on both sides of the conflict -- a war that would alter the course and determine the outcome of the bitter hostilities, forever changing our world and future. In a stunning amalgam of science and history, Tom Shachtman, the critically acclaimed author of Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold and The Phony War, 1939-1940, gives us a riveting chronicle of World War II's forgotten combatants: the engineers, physicists, chemists, and academics whose contributions to the war effort were as important as the noble sacrifices of the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who bravely risked their lives. While it is a widely accepted fact that America's development and employment of the atomic bomb ended the Pacific struggle -- and that the failure of Hitler's scientists to develop their own A-bomb helped to doom Germany -- little note has been made of the other remarkable scientific accomplishments of this dark and terrible epoch. Beginning with a fascinating overview of the Depression-era struggle to establish scientific and military alliances that would ultimately enable the Allies to catch up to the Axis's early dominance, Terrors and Marvels offers an eye-opening history of the furious battles for technological superiority covertly waged by the world's most brilliant minds. From the creation of faster, deadlier jets and rockets to the development of biological, chemical, and electronic warfare -- from astonishing advances in medical science to breakthroughs in radar and decoding -- the incredible successes and failures that occurred in top-secret facilities around the world in the early 1940s never made headlines but often determined triumph and defeat. Here, also, are the intensely human stories of the architects of the terrifying war machines -- men and women of rare intelligence and integrity torn by the conflicting demands of conscience and country, haunted by their roles in the use and abuse of powerful science. Edifying, enthralling, startling, and sobering, Terrors and Marvels is a masterful work that sheds light on the astonishing achievements of a remarkable few and the great and terrible technology that swung the pendulum of victory in the Allies' direction.

How Science and Technology Changed the Character and Outcome of World War II

Terrors and Marvels

In this biography, historian and social analyst Tom Shachtman offers the clearest and most detailed examination to date of one of America¿s most influential thinkers. Known as the ¿longshoreman philosopher,¿ Eric Hoffer was a beloved and controversial figure with vieled origins. Using Hoffer¿s never-before-seen archives, Shachtman uncovers the steps by which this unschooled migrant field hand and dockworker created himself as an artist and thinker, and how his background and occupations were reflected in his published books.

The Life and Times of Eric Hoffer

American Iconoclast

Chronicles the social, political, and economic events that marked the 1963-74 decade and analyzes the lasting effects of that series of shocks on the American national consciousness

Dallas to Watergate, 1963-1974

Decade of Shocks

“A lovely, fascinating book, which brings science to life.” —Alan Lightman Combining science, history, and adventure, Tom Shachtman “holds the reader’s attention with the skill of a novelist” as he chronicles the story of humans’ four-centuries-long quest to master the secrets of cold (Scientific American). “A disarming portrait of an exquisite, ferocious, world-ending extreme,” Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold demonstrates how temperature science produced astonishing scientific insights and applications that have revolutionized civilization (Kirkus Reviews). It also illustrates how scientific advancement, fueled by fortuitous discoveries and the efforts of determined individuals, has allowed people to adapt to—and change—the environments in which they live and work, shaping man’s very understanding of, and relationship, with the world. This “truly wonderful book” was adapted into an acclaimed documentary underwritten by the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, directed by British Emmy Award winner David Dugan, and aired on the BBC and PBS’s Nova in 2008 (Library Journal). “An absorbing account to chill out with.” —Booklist

Tom Shachtman

About

Books

Join the club