The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession
Language: English
Published by Free Press, 2007
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: Greenworld Books, arlington, TX, U.S.A.Greenworld Books
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- Title
- The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession
- Author
- Ken Alder
- Publisher
- Free Press
- Publication year
- 2007
- Condition
- very_good
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0743259882
- ISBN 13
- 9780743259880
For centuries, people searched in vain for a way to unmask liars, seeking clues in blushing cheeks, shifty eyes, and curling toes...all the body's outward signs. But not until the 1920s did a cop with a Ph.D. team up with an entrepreneurial high school student from Berkeley, California and claim to have invented a foolproof machine that peered directly into the human heart. In a few short years their polygraph had transformed police work, seized headlines, solved sensational murders, and enthralled the nation. In Chicago, the capital of American vice, the two men wielded their device to clean up corruption, reform the police, and probe the minds of infamous killers. Before long the lie detector had become the nation's "mechanical conscience," searching for honesty on Main Street, in Hollywood, and even within Washington, D.C. Husbands and wives tested each other's fidelity. Corporations tested their employees' honesty. Movie studios and advertisers tested their audiences' responses. Eventually, thousands of government employees were tested for their loyalty and "morals" -- for lack of which many lost their jobs.
Yet the machine was flawed. It often was used to accuse the wrong person. It could easily be beaten by those who knew how. Repeatedly it has been applied as an instrument of psychological torture, with the goal of extracting confessions. And its creators paid a commensurate price. One went mad trying to destroy the Frankenstein's monster he had created. The other became consumed by mistrust: jealous of his cheating wife, contemptuous of his former mentor, and driven to an early death. The only happy man among the machine's champions was the eccentric psychologist who went on to achieve glory as the creator of Wonder Woman.
Yet this deceptive device took America -- and only America -- by storm. Today, the CIA still administers polygraphs to its employees. Accused celebrities loudly trumpet its clean bill of truth. And the U.S. government, as part of its new "war on terror," is currently exploring forms of lie detection that reach directly into the brain. Apparently, America still dreams of a technology that will render human beings transparent.
The Lie Detectors is the entertaining and thought-provoking story of that American obsession.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review
"[A] revealing, colloquial social history."-David Wallace-Wells, Washington Monthly
"This engrossing portrait of two lives ruled by the lie detector is enhanced by Alder''s cultural clarity about the credence accorded to the mechanical confessional."-Gilbert Taylor, Booklist
"Alder spins a yarn of scientific innovation and personal vituperation set against the backdrop of mid-20th-century America. . . . While painting a rich, complex portrait of these men, Alder remains admirably skeptical of the machine itself, which he says is a uniquely American invention, designed to satisfy "a nation obsessed by criminal disorder and political corruption.'"-Publishers Weekly
"The lie detector and its strange persistent grip on the American imagination offers rich material for Mr. Alder to work with. How many stories require William James, Gertrude Stein and Dick Tracy for the telling, not to mention criminals like the Torso Murderer of Cleveland? Stir into the mix a mutually hostile coterie of inventors, scientific visionaries and outright hucksters, and you have the ingredients for a heady brew."-William Grimes, New York Times
"[Alder] offers us a rich history, organized around the careers of the individuals who conceived, developed and marketed the lie detector. He does not shy away from discussing larger questions about the culture that embraced the machine and allowed it to flourish, but he patiently waits until the developments in his story beg such discussion. The result is a fluent tale, personal yet pensive, well researched yet far from stuffy. This is Alder's distinct style, and it has made him of the very few academic historians of science who have been able to cross over and attract large numbers of lay readers."-Tal Golan, American Scientist
"In The Lie Detectors, Alder has penned the definitive account of the device's invention and its explosion on the American stage."-Jon M. Sands, Jurimetrics -- Jon M. Sands "Jurimetrics"
"In "The Lie Detectors", Alder has penned the definitive account of the device's invention and its explosion on the American stage."--Jon M./i>--Jon M. Sands "Jurimetrics "
"In "The Lie Detectors," Alder has penned the definitive account of the device's invention and its explosion on the American stage." Jon M./i>--Jon M. Sands "Jurimetrics ""
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Greenworld Books
arlington, TX, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since June 20, 2025
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