Sons Of Cain: A History of Serial Killers from the Stone Age to the Present

Product Description

Before the term was coined in 1981, there were no serial killers. There were only monsters-killers society first understood as werewolves, vampires, ghouls and witches or, later, Hitchcockian psychos.

In Sons of Cain-a book that fills the gap between dry academic studies and sensationalized true crime-investigative historian Peter Vronsky examines our understanding of serial killing from its prehistoric anthropological evolutionary dimensions in the pre-civilization era (c. 15,000 BC) to today. Delving further back into human history and deeper into the human psyche than Serial Killers-Vronsky's 2004 book, which has been called the definitive history of serial murder-he focuses strictly on sexual serial killers- thrill killers who engage in murder, rape, torture, cannibalism and necrophilia, as opposed to for-profit serial killers, including hit men, or political serial killers, like terrorists or genocidal murderers.

These sexual serial killers differ from all other serial killers in their motives and their foundations. They are uniquely human and-as popular culture has demonstrated-uniquely fascinating.Before the term was coined in 1981, there were no serial killers. There were only monsters-killers society first understood as werewolves, vampires, ghouls and witches or, later, Hitchcockian psychos.

In Sons of Cain-a book that fills the gap between dry academic studies and sensationalized true crime-investigative historian Peter Vronsky examines our understanding of serial killing from its prehistoric anthropological evolutionary dimensions in the pre-civilization era (c. 15,000 BC) to today. Delving further back into human history and deeper into the human psyche than Serial Killers-Vronsky's 2004 book, which has been called the definitive history of serial murder-he focuses strictly on sexual serial killers- thrill killers who engage in murder, rape, torture, cannibalism and necrophilia, as opposed to for-profit serial killers, including hit men, or political serial killers, like terrorists or genocidal murderers.

These sexual serial killers differ from all other serial killers in their motives and their foundations. They are uniquely human and-as popular culture has demonstrated-uniquely fascinating.
Peter Vronsky is an author, filmmaker and investigative historian. He is the author of two bestselling books on the history and psychopathology of serial homicide- Serial Killers- The Method and Madness of Monsters and Female Serial Killers- How and Why Women Become Monsters. He began writing about serial killers after he had brief random encounters with two different serial killers before they were apprehended, one in New York City in December 1979 and the other in Moscow in October 1990. He holds a PhD in history from University of Toronto.