Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us about Success

In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a scale of madness along which we all sit. Incorporating the latest advances in brain scanning and neuroscience, Dutton demonstrates that the brilliant neurosurgeon who lacks empathy has more in common with a Ted Bundy who kills for pleasure than we may wish to admit, and that a mugger in a dimly lit parking lot may well, in fact, have the same nerveless poise as a titan of industry. Dutton argues that there are indeed functional psychopaths among us--different from their murderous counterparts--who use their detached, unflinching, and charismatic personalities to succeed in mainstream society, and that shockingly, in some fields, the more psychopathic people are, the more likely they are to succeed. Dutton deconstructs this often misunderstood diagnosis through bold on-the-ground reporting and original scientific research as he mi