Share <Embed>

Buy New

$17.60

List Price: $18.99
Save: $1.39 (7%)

FREE Shipping on orders over $25—or get FREE Two-Day Shipping with Amazon Prime

Only 4 left in stock (more on the way).

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

Want it Monday, Oct. 29? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Select delivery location

Buy Used

$9.95

FREE Shipping on orders over $25.

Select delivery location

Used: Very Good | Details

Sold by clicknship

Fulfilled by Amazon

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Other Sellers on Amazon

Add to Cart

$16.79
+ Free Shipping

Sold by: BOOK- LAND

Add to Cart

$19.28
+ $3.00 shipping

Sold by: Books Mela

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend Paperback – October 21, 2008

by Barbara Oakley PhD (Author)

72 customer reviews

See all 11 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

"Please retry"

$11.36

—

—

"Please retry"

$6.98

Paperback

"Please retry"

$17.60

Have you ever heard of a person who left you wondering, "How could someone be so twisted? So evil?" Prompted by clues in her sister’s diary after her mysterious death, author Barbara Oakley takes the reader inside the head of the kinds of malevolent people you know, perhaps all too well, but could never understand.

Starting with psychology as a frame of reference, Oakley uses cutting-edge images of the working brain to provide startling support for the idea that "evil" people act the way they do mainly as the result of a dysfunction. In fact, some deceitful, manipulative, and even sadistic behavior appears to be programmed genetically—suggesting that some people really are born to be bad.

Oakley links the latest findings of molecular research to a wide array of seemingly unrelated historical and current phenomena, from the harems of the Ottomans and the chummy jokes of "Uncle Joe" Stalin, to the remarkable memory of investor Warren Buffet. Throughout, she never loses sight of the personal cost of evil genes as she unravels the mystery surrounding her sister’s enigmatic life—and death.

Evil Genes is a tour-de-force of popular science writing that brilliantly melds scientific research with intriguing family history and puts both a human and scientific face to evil.

Frequently bought together

+
+

Total price: $41.15

One of these items ships sooner than the other. Show details

Buy the selected items together

This item:Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend by Barbara Oakley PhD Paperback $17.60
Only 4 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential by Barbara Oakley PhD Paperback $11.55
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra) by Barbara Oakley PhD Paperback $12.00
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Barbara Oakley PhD

76

Paperback
$11.55
Barbara Oakley PhD

5

Paperback
$11.00
Barbara Oakley PhD

683

Paperback
$12.00
Barbara Oakley

28

Hardcover
$21.97
Barbara Oakley

14

Hardcover
$59.95
Nelson Dellis

6

Paperback
$13.38

Sponsored products related to this item (What's this?)

Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1

Feedback

Ray Dalio

734

Hardcover
$17.85
Feedback

2002

$14.58
Feedback

$24.07
Feedback

8

$17.99
Feedback

$9.99
Feedback

Christy Shell

Stuck in your ordinary life and want more? This new book from author and life coach Christy Shell will show you how to achieve the extraordinary

12

Kindle Edition
$3.99
Feedback

3378

$15.95

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A fascinating scientific and personal exploration of the roots of evil, filled with human insight and telling detail."
--Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor, Harvard University, and author of
The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, and The Stuff of Thought

"'Scientific non-fiction' and 'page turner' aren’t two phrases I’d expect in the same sentence, but for the remarkable Evil Genes, they fit."
--William A. Wulf, President Emeritus, National Academy of Engineering

About the Author

Barbara A. Oakley, PhD (Rochester, MI), has been dubbed a female Indiana Jones—her writing combines worldwide adventure with solid research expertise. Among other adventures, she has worked as a Russian translator on Soviet trawlers in the Bering Sea, served as radio operator at the South Pole Station in Antarctica, and risen from Private to Regular Army Captain in the US Army. Currently an associate professor of engineering at Oakland University in Michigan, Oakley is a recent vice president of the world's largest bioengineering society and holds a doctorate in the integrative discipline of systems engineering.

Product details

Paperback: 473 pages
Publisher: Prometheus Books; 59730th edition (October 21, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1591026652
ISBN-13: 978-1591026655
Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 1 x 8.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 72 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #284,588 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #335 in Books > Medical Books > Basic Sciences > Genetics
- #569 in Books > Medical Books > Psychology > Neuropsychology
- #647 in Books > Science & Math > Biological Sciences > Anatomy

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

Be the first video

Your name here

Sponsored products related to this item (What's this?)

Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1

Feedback

Travis Bradberry

1254

Hardcover
$14.99
Feedback

Yana Weinstein

2

Just released

Paperback
$25.60
Feedback

Susan Heitler Ph.D.

35

Paperback
$13.56
Feedback

Gary Chapman

219

Paperback
$12.40
Feedback

Robin J. Fogarty

2

Paperback
$34.95
Feedback

Ron Ritchhart

42

Paperback
$19.09
Feedback

Jeffrey D. Holmes

8

Paperback
$21.82
Feedback

Som Bathla

What a waste of time, if you don’t know how to learn effectively! Discover advanced methods to learn better, memorize more and master any skill faster

8

Paperback
$10.99

Try the Kindle edition and experience these great reading features:

See Kindle Edition

72 customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars

Review this product

Write a customer review

Showing 1-4 of 72 reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Ronnie GonzalezTop Contributor: Chess

A very important book, though with some problems

August 4, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

In the wake of all sorts of stupid notions about what a eugenics should be, this kind of book -- which focuses much more on the foundations of character itself, rather than much more shallow and ostentatious notions of intelligence and physical beauty -- is sorely needed. To make that better world we all dream of, in this brave new era of things like gene therapy, we should be focusing first and foremost on the genes which dictate good character.

Also, I am glad to finally see a book which takes a completely different approach to the topic of evil than the usual sociopath-psychopath approach, and which focuses on the tempestuous nature of borderline personality disorder instead. I must confess that I wasn't comfortable with the idea that "merely moody" people could indeed be supremely dangerous, but as I read on in Oakley's book, I definitely started appreciating her logic on the matter.

With that said, I offer three somewhat sizeable grains of salt while reading this book:

1) Borderline Personality Disorder, like all psychiatric disorders, is a diagnosis all too easily and hastily given to people who are simply trauma and abandonment survivors. So to demonize such people, which happens all too often, is not at all fair or just. While you read Oakley's book, please keep in mind the evils of adding insult to injury when talking about people who deserve the precise opposite of stigmatization and demonization in the face of their traumatic abandonments and betrayals.

2) Speaking of BPD, and even of Oakley's story of her own sister who was more or less abandoned for extremely long periods of time in hospitals due to her polio as a very young child, why doesn't Oakley look more into the early abandonment and neglect factor as a possible early cause of adult BPD? There continues to be, after all, in the DSM manuals, "Reactive Attachment" and "Disinhibited Social Engagement" disorder diagnoses that stem from primarily early childhood neglect and abandonment conditions. So why doesn't Oakley look into this possibility more, even if genetic susceptibility does play a factor? There seems to be something of a grudge going on here, even if the grudge is understandable.

3) All throughout the book, you are reminded of Pink Floyd's famous song "Us and Them" as Oakley all too often uses her expertise to deride and mock anything that isn't seemingly on the winning side of history. She is way too quick to only point fingers at those people and notions that lie outside the all-American establishment and the status quo, such as the "singular" close-mindedness of Soviet sailors with nothing ever bad to say about their own government or "sociopaths" like Peter Duesberg, because those are safe non-establishment targets. But only when a seeming rogue becomes endorsed by the mainstream, like the Australian discoverer of the ulcer-causing bacterium H. pylori, do "sociopath crackpots" now magically become okay to stop mocking.

This is a very good book with some telling immaturity and painfully biased partiality. That said, it still very much bears reading.

22 people found this helpful23 people found this helpful

Good, Could Have Been Great

May 29, 2009

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book has so much promise but is marred by a preoccupation about the exact psychological and DSM terminology for the various versions of psychopathy. The science and social science research is important, but dominate the book to an unfortunate extent. I found myself skipping page after page of detailed parsing of borderline versus antisocial disorder. Maybe the author will come out with a revised edition that is better organized or edited for the general reader. For the general reader, The Sociopath Next Door is a good option.

29 people found this helpful30 people found this helpful

Poorly formatted

August 13, 2011

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This applies to the Kindle edition only. I assume the issues are not present with the dead tree version of the volume.

I find Oakley's subject matter fascinating and her writing style, particularly when relating personal anecdotes, is beautiful. Unfortunately, the conversion to Kindle eBook seems to have missed a few steps. A few missing letters was frustrating at first, now on chapter 6 I find it so distracting as to make me consider giving up. A quick run through some sort of spell check would have gone a long way. Though it wouldn't have caught "often how a variety of symptoms", it would surely have spared us "have a e ndency" and this lovely passage "This cross section d monstrates some of the br in's internal structures. The amygdala and hippocampus are actually locate deep within the brain ut are shown as an overla in the approximate areas that they are locate ."

I continue trudging through, but it would surely be more enjoyable if some effort had been put into the product. If you intend to read this book, you may want to consider getting the actual *book*

9 people found this helpful10 people found this helpful

Concerned reader

A Bold New Approach to Understanding Human Behavior

July 14, 2012

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Barbara Oakley's "Evil Genes" is a bold new approach to understanding the human psyche. While we are just now approaching the threshold of truly understanding the manner in which our brain operates, Dr. Oakley, employing a writing style that allows the reader to see matters with her personal (sometimes painful) experiences, has written an important introductory work chronicling what we know about the functioning of the brain to this point in time.
With the advent of fMRIs, the brain is being literally opened up to the world and Oakley does a credible job in providing the lay readership with recent research. Most troubling for us, however, is the potential that psychopathic/sociopathic behavior might actually be a function of cranial predisposition, allowing such individuals to legitimately claim, "I can control my actions!" Along the way, the book examines all the great human monsters of our time--from Hitler and Stalin through Slobodan Milosevic et al. This book is definitely a worthy read.

One person found this helpful2 people found this helpful

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend

Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway

This item: Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend

Set up a giveaway

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Barbara Oakley PhD

5

Paperback
$11.00
Barbara Oakley PhD

683

Paperback
$12.00
Barbara Oakley PhD

76

Paperback
$11.55
Barbara Oakley

28

Hardcover
$21.97
Nelson Dellis

6

Paperback
$13.38
Julie Bogart
Paperback
$11.59

English United States

Conditions of Use
Privacy Notice
Interest-Based Ads
© 1996-2018, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates