The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

By Jon Ronson

Book Overview

In this madcap journey, a bestselling journalist investigates psychopaths and the industry of doctors, scientists, and everyone else who studies them. The Psychopath Test is a fascinating journey through the minds of madness. Jon Ronson's exploration of a potential hoax being played on the world's top neurologists takes him, unexpectedly, into the heart of the madness industry. An influential psychologist who is convinced that many important CEOs and politicians are, in fact, psychopaths teaches Ronson how to spot these high-flying individuals by looking out for little telltale verbal and nonverbal clues. And so Ronson, armed with his new psychopath-spotting abilities, enters the corridors of power. He spends time with a death-squad leader institutionalized for mortgage fraud in Coxsackie, New York; a legendary CEO whose psychopathy has been speculated about in the press; and a patient in an asylum for the criminally insane who insists he's sane and certainly not a psychopath. Ronson not only solves the mystery of the hoax but also discovers, disturbingly, that sometimes the personalities at the helm of the madness industry are, with their drives and obsessions, as mad in their own way as those they study. And that relatively ordinary people are, more and more, defined by their maddest edges.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594485755
• ISBN13: 9781594485756
• Release Date: May 2012
• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Lacked Cohesive Narrative

Fun story, fast-paced, but ultimately not that educational or informative. Jon Ronson can't manage to stay on one topic long enough--he jumps from mysterious packages to psychopathy to reality TV to conspiracy theorists, and he never really settles on any one subject or interviewee long enough to thoroughly understand them. It was a fun introduction to the subject of psychopathy, but I know I don't fully understand the phenomenon and will need to find more books beyond Ronson's.

Intriguing, informative, but sometimes lacks follow-through

What is a psychotic? Is it like a schizophrenic? In an age in which politicians, financiers and community leaders so often teach themselves to "fake it to make it," sussing out the expert frauds is obviously a crucial issue -- since the late 1960's the DSM* has jumped from a few dozen pages to nearly a thousand, and psychiatric students study intently how to apply its principles -- while, at the same time, budding charlatans work it to learn how to fool it. _____ * Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, American Psychiatric Association. . Jon Ronson, who also gave us THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS, has given us quite a helpful book here. He criss-crossed the UK for research, then headed over here to do the same, and finally compiled his own elaborate check-list of psychopathy. No psychiatric diagnosis succeeds without a DSM criterion, an aspect of the field of which the author is well aware. Yet I'm also aware that for all the well-practiced journalism Ronson brings to his topic (which reminds me of John McPhee, but a bit more casual), he could have been more focused. So read this book, but don't expect it to be the "be-all and end-all" of diagnosis.

One of my favorite books

This book is what really sparked my interest in psychopathy, so it hold a special place in my heart. I absolutely love this book, and have suggested it to anyone that comes to me asking for a good read; I even gave it to my counselor and he found it pretty interesting. Even if you're not interested in psychology in the slightest, The Psychopath Test is definitely one of my favorites.

Jon Ronson is a Genius

Ronson is one of my favorite authors and this book is no exception to his excellence!