A Mind for Murder: The Education of the Unabomber and the Origins of Modern Terrorism (Paperback)

by Alston Chase (Author) "LIKE MANY Harvard alumni, sometimes when I return to Cambridge I wander the campus, reminiscing about the old days and musing on how differently my..." (more)
Key Phrases: psychiatric competency report, perfect detonator, sentencing memorandum, Cold War, Evergreen Park, Ted Kaczynski (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
A chilling and provocative account of what made the Unabomber tick. (Boston Globe )

A chilling and provocative account of what made the Unabomber tick. -- Boston Globe

Fascinating and revealing. (Chicago Tribune )

Fascinating and revealing. -- Chicago Tribune

With its unusual emphasis and sometimes surprisingly personal tone, this may become the definitive Kaczynksi volume. -- Publishers Weekly

Product Description
"With its unusual emphasis and sometimes surprisingly personal tone, this may become the definitive Kaczynksi volume."—Publishers Weekly

This is a radically new interpretation of the life and motives of the infamous Unabomber. Alston Chase's gripping account follows Ted Kaczynski from an unhappy adolescence in Illinois to Harvard, where he was subject not only to the despairing intellectual currents of the Cold War but also to ethically questionable psychological experiments. Kaczynski fled academia to the edge of the wilderness in Montana, but Chase shows us that he was never the wild mountain man the media often assumed him to be. Kaczynski was living in a book-lined cabin just off a main road when he formulated the view of the world that he used to justify murder. Through Chase's compelling narration of the planning and execution of Kaczynski's crimes, we come to know a thoroughly cold-blooded killer, but one whose ideas were uncannily close to those of mainstream America. Originally published in hardcover as Harvard and the Unabomber.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (May 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393325563
• ISBN-13: 978-0393325560
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #464,505 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well Done, December 28, 2005

By	Jason Nelson "musshin" (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Mind for Murder is an excellent book by Alston Chase. This book has two main components to it. The first component deals with the life and demise of Ted Kaczynski. The author gives us descriptions of Ted's early years as a child, his high school years, and spends a great deal of time expounding on Ted's time spent at Harvard.

In the author's description of Ted's early years we our shown Ted grew to despise his parents pressuring him to excel academically. His resentment was especially strong toward his father who seemed to remain aloof and somewhat nihilistic till he committed suicide. Ted also resented his mother Wanda because he felt she intentionally subjected him to psychological abuses as a child. These feelings seemed to stay with Ted and even grow as Ted embarked on his college career.

The second component of this book is a cultural analysis that centers around the time period Ted would have been at Harvard and proffers reasons why Ted and others in our modern times have felt the need to resort to terrorism. The author explains how Universities like Harvard used to place a strong emphasis on liberal arts education. Education that was paired with moral virtue. This way of thinking is found in the thoughts of the ancient Greeks who thought reason had to be bound with moral virtue. However, in the 1950s with World War II just having ended and the Cold War looming the universities seemed to adopt the stance of logical positivism. The idea that if something isn't scientifically verifiable it has no meaning. In other words, moral judgments are just the cultural attitudes of the time. Ted would have encountered this line of nihilistic thinking at Harvard. Is it any wonder in later years he would adopt and expound his personal philosophy to mean any ends justified the means? This is especially poignant considering moral judgments to Ted seemed to be just a bunch of efforts at psychological control by the system.

Chase later gives us insightful details of how Ted was used at Harvard by Henry Murray for a psychological experiment. Ted and some other Harvard students at the time were participants in an experiment to submit these persons to dreadful psychological interrogation experiments. The Govt. at this time was very concerned with finding out how to treat or even coerce political prisoners into doing what they wanted. Even going so far as to study and try to learn how to keep the masses under control. Chase gives us historical insight into the Govt. intentionally trying out "new" drugs like LSD on college students, prison inmates, and anyone else it so fancied because surely the Russians had a secret "mind control" drug like this to coerce confessions out of POWs. Ted resented his being tested (even if he was being paid for it) and came to view the techno-industrial system as guilty of imposing unnecessary suffering on the masses. Mind control, feeling like a cog in the machine, depression, irritability, lack of leisure, pollution, were all some of the things Ted blamed on the techno-industrial system. The only way to stop these unjust grievances was to lash out against the system. Even killing if necessary which is just what Ted did.

This is a sad book in some ways but it's a more important work in many other ways. It tells what happens when value gets subjugated below reason. It tells how the culture suffers when ideas like deconstructionism, logical positivism, and structuralism so permeate our culture that nothing has any meaning. Until academics and the culture in general start accepting the fact that reason is only half the puzzle; there is always yin with yang, objectivity with subjectivity, and mind with matter in any accurate depiction of reality. Until we understand these principles and adopt a more holistic approach to reality we are perhaps bound to repeat these same mistakes-the devaluing of society to utter meaninglessness. Worst of all, the suffering of innocents by acts of terrorism and the dependence on antidepressants will continue to be a prominent part of life.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Necessary, July 1, 2004

By A Customer

Though Chase does seem to suffer a need to attack what he views as the outcome of "value-free" education, I do not think the book suffers as much from this insistence as does the previous reviewer. In fact, there is much to be gained from such a study.

Chase's book is an admirable study of both the Unabomber and the postwar currents that converged to contribute to the making of the Unabomber. Thankfully, Chase is wise enough not to offer excuses for Kaczynski's actions, but his research into what made Kaczynski "tick" provide a believable backdrop and a necessary antidote to the popular misconception of the Unabomber as a madman devoid of reason or motive.

And rather than finding fault with Chase's attempt to tie the Unabomber's actions and theories to those of other "terrorist" groups, I found his arguments convincing, especially in regards to the pervasiveness of the positivistic, supremely rational curriculum of Western universities and the devaluing of the humanities.

We need more thinkers and researchers like Chase who are willing to make us question our kneejerk reactions to men who make us as uncomfortable as Kaczynski.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An American Terrorist, June 27, 2007

By	J. Grammer (Sierra Vista, AZ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A Mind for Murder is a compelling look into what contributed to the creation of the monster known as the Unabomber. It begins in the earlier years of Kaczynski and logs personal event and how these events contributed to his psyche as a murder when he grew. One of the most compelling insights in the book is how he is thought to be insane and a madman. Kaczynski Knew what he was doing and did not what to be declared as insane because his environmental/anti-technology cause would be thought a joke. He took a plea bargain in order to keep the defense from declaring him mentally unstable. I was a amazed at the book and the great insight and detail it portrayed. If you are interested in Domestic Terrorism this is a must read.