The crimes of Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy and other high-profile killers are so breathtakingly awful that most people would label them "evil." Renowned psychiatrist Michael H. Stone—host of Discovery Channel’s former series Most Evil—uses this as his starting point to explore the concept and reality of evil from a new perspective. 

Basing his analysis on the detailed biographies of more than 600 violent criminals, Stone has created a 22-level hierarchy of evil behavior, loosely reflecting the structure of Dante’s Inferno. He traces two salient personality traits that run the gamut from those who commit crimes of passion to perpetrators of the worst crimes—sadistic torture and murder. 

One trait is narcissism, as exhibited in people who are so self-centered that they have little or no ability to care about their victims. The other is aggression, the use of power over another person to inflict humiliation, suffering, and death.

What do psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience tell us about the minds of those described as evil? And what will that mean for the rest of us? THE ANATOMY OF EVIL-Dr. Michael H. Stone