What do you think?
Rate this book
A Plague of Murder: The Rise and Rise of Serial Killing in the Modern Age
The renowned criminologist and author of The Outsider delivers a penetrating study of serial killers as a uniquely modern phenomenon. In this fascinating study, Colin Wilson explores the roots of the serial killer mindset, and the origins of this terrifying modern personality. The term "serial killer" is still relatively new, coined by the FBI to describe those who murder repeatedly and obsessively, usually with a sexual motive. Who are these killers? What social and psychological pressures drive them to their crimes? Can we understand and learn to predict their behavior? Wilson offers revealing profiles of some of the most infamous killers in modern from Jack the Ripper to Jeffrey Dahmer, the monster of Milwaukee; Reginald Christie to Dennis Nilsen, who killed for company; the Boston Strangler to Donald Gaskins, who murdered more than 100 victims; as well as Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker and many more.
564 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 23, 2015
23 people are currently reading
154 people want to read
About the author
Colin Wilson
405 books1,291 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Colin Henry Wilson was born and raised in Leicester, England, U.K. He left school at 16, worked in factories and various occupations, and read in his spare time. When Wilson was 24, Gollancz published The Outsider (1956) which examines the role of the social 'outsider' in seminal works of various key literary and cultural figures. These include Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William James, T. E. Lawrence, Vaslav Nijinsky and Vincent Van Gogh and Wilson discusses his perception of Social alienation in their work. The book was a best seller and helped popularize existentialism in Britain. Critical praise though, was short-lived and Wilson was soon widely criticized.
Wilson's works after The Outsider focused on positive aspects of human psychology, such as peak experiences and the narrowness of consciousness. He admired the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and corresponded with him. Wilson wrote The War Against Sleep: The Philosophy of Gurdjieff on the life, work and philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff and an accessible introduction to the Greek-Armenian mystic in 1980. He argues throughout his work that the existentialist focus on defeat or nausea is only a partial representation of reality and that there is no particular reason for accepting it. Wilson views normal, everyday consciousness buffeted by the moment, as "blinkered" and argues that it should not be accepted as showing us the truth about reality. This blinkering has some evolutionary advantages in that it stops us from being completely immersed in wonder, or in the huge stream of events, and hence unable to act. However, to live properly we need to access more than this everyday consciousness. Wilson believes that our peak experiences of joy and meaningfulness are as real as our experiences of angst and, since we are more fully alive at these moments, they are more real. These experiences can be cultivated through concentration, paying attention, relaxation and certain types of work.
Colin Henry Wilson was born and raised in Leicester, England, U.K. He left school at 16, worked in factories and various occupations, and read in his spare time. When Wilson was 24, Gollancz published The Outsider (1956) which examines the role of the social 'outsider' in seminal works of various key literary and cultural figures. These include Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William James, T. E. Lawrence, Vaslav Nijinsky and Vincent Van Gogh and Wilson discusses his perception of Social alienation in their work. The book was a best seller and helped popularize existentialism in Britain. Critical praise though, was short-lived and Wilson was soon widely criticized.
Wilson's works after The Outsider focused on positive aspects of human psychology, such as peak experiences and the narrowness of consciousness. He admired the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and corresponded with him. Wilson wrote The War Against Sleep: The Philosophy of Gurdjieff on the life, work and philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff and an accessible introduction to the Greek-Armenian mystic in 1980. He argues throughout his work that the existentialist focus on defeat or nausea is only a partial representation of reality and that there is no particular reason for accepting it. Wilson views normal, everyday consciousness buffeted by the moment, as "blinkered" and argues that it should not be accepted as showing us the truth about reality. This blinkering has some evolutionary advantages in that it stops us from being completely immersed in wonder, or in the huge stream of events, and hence unable to act. However, to live properly we need to access more than this everyday consciousness. Wilson believes that our peak experiences of joy and meaningfulness are as real as our experiences of angst and, since we are more fully alive at these moments, they are more real. These experiences can be cultivated through concentration, paying attention, relaxation and certain types of work.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 8, 2017
It took me over a year to finish this book, checking it out every so often. I have a little reminder in my Habitica glaring at me as if to say: Why haven't you finished this!? So after my wedding I took a deep breath, swore to myself I'd bull through it, and I did.
I kinda wish I hadn't.
I loved Colin Wilson when I was younger, and by all rights that should have meant I'd like this. Like not being able to go home again, though, I think I was better off not trying to read Wilson as an adult. He is completely and utterly fixated on the idea that sexual serial killers are a sign of humanity reaching a certain level on the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs - we don't need to worry about subsistence so much, so we act out in sexual ways. Before that time, all serial murders were for profit or survival in some way
I'm not convinced. Wilson ignores the probability that sexual serial killers existed before the early 19th century (except for token nods to Gilles de Rais and good ol' Countess Liz). He doesn't seem to even give any thought to the idea that documentation of such things might be lacking - perhaps because that would mean his thesis is incorrect. He doesn't even look at other cultures, like the eastern Asian societies, to see what might have been going on there. For Wilson, as with so many others, it goes back to Jack the Ripper.
But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I can think of many reasons that the few literate people in medieval Europe and earlier would have decided not to record stories of sexual criminals, even assuming that they were defined as such by the ethics of the day - after all, upper-class women had few rights, and lower-class people were out of luck entirely. Who's to say that a citizen of Athens who was assumed to have been set upon by "Maenads" and torn limb from limb was not the victim of a sex crime by our standards?
I don't think Wilson supports his thesis well, but the array of killers he talks about is encyclopedic. To me, the value of this book is in stories to research further if that's your thing. For that, he gets three stars. Honestly, though, it wasn't a fantastic read. I'm glad I'm done.
I kinda wish I hadn't.
I loved Colin Wilson when I was younger, and by all rights that should have meant I'd like this. Like not being able to go home again, though, I think I was better off not trying to read Wilson as an adult. He is completely and utterly fixated on the idea that sexual serial killers are a sign of humanity reaching a certain level on the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs - we don't need to worry about subsistence so much, so we act out in sexual ways. Before that time, all serial murders were for profit or survival in some way
I'm not convinced. Wilson ignores the probability that sexual serial killers existed before the early 19th century (except for token nods to Gilles de Rais and good ol' Countess Liz). He doesn't seem to even give any thought to the idea that documentation of such things might be lacking - perhaps because that would mean his thesis is incorrect. He doesn't even look at other cultures, like the eastern Asian societies, to see what might have been going on there. For Wilson, as with so many others, it goes back to Jack the Ripper.
But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I can think of many reasons that the few literate people in medieval Europe and earlier would have decided not to record stories of sexual criminals, even assuming that they were defined as such by the ethics of the day - after all, upper-class women had few rights, and lower-class people were out of luck entirely. Who's to say that a citizen of Athens who was assumed to have been set upon by "Maenads" and torn limb from limb was not the victim of a sex crime by our standards?
I don't think Wilson supports his thesis well, but the array of killers he talks about is encyclopedic. To me, the value of this book is in stories to research further if that's your thing. For that, he gets three stars. Honestly, though, it wasn't a fantastic read. I'm glad I'm done.
July 29, 2018
Disturbing overviews of some of the most horrific murder cases of our times
March 17, 2022
great read
Love this book it feels a real insight into the minds of murderers. Very easy to read hard to put down.
Love this book it feels a real insight into the minds of murderers. Very easy to read hard to put down.
July 23, 2020
There were many factual errors in the prologue—about what a serial killer is, about the history of serial murder, about the facts concerning the Jack the Ripper case, for crying out loud. But I held on.
Then the first chapter was on pornography and sexual serial murder. Oh, no.
In it, the authors actually stated that rape and rape-murder were not as prevalent when sex workers were more prevalent and brothers and sisters slept in the same beds. Seriously. More sexy time all ‘round, and rape, and I quote, wasn’t worth going to the gallows for.
That’s not how that works. I went to grad school for this, and I refuse to read further in a book that has this statement in it. It insults my intelligence.
Then the first chapter was on pornography and sexual serial murder. Oh, no.
In it, the authors actually stated that rape and rape-murder were not as prevalent when sex workers were more prevalent and brothers and sisters slept in the same beds. Seriously. More sexy time all ‘round, and rape, and I quote, wasn’t worth going to the gallows for.
That’s not how that works. I went to grad school for this, and I refuse to read further in a book that has this statement in it. It insults my intelligence.
April 30, 2022
Excessively gruesome
At 527 pages it wears out its interest long before you get to that final page. It is short on much psychological insight into the motivation of these individuals and reads like an extended Wikipedia page as it exhaustively catalogues the gruesome deeds. It is not for the weak of stomach. Whatever insight there is in short supply before it moves on to the next series of atrocities. This would have benefited from an edit,especially the final quarter of the book which goes on and on. I highly doubt that I'd reread this book and just refer to my personal highlights. For those who enjoy these types of books it will be interesting, but those who are looking for something deeper this will be disappointing.
At 527 pages it wears out its interest long before you get to that final page. It is short on much psychological insight into the motivation of these individuals and reads like an extended Wikipedia page as it exhaustively catalogues the gruesome deeds. It is not for the weak of stomach. Whatever insight there is in short supply before it moves on to the next series of atrocities. This would have benefited from an edit,especially the final quarter of the book which goes on and on. I highly doubt that I'd reread this book and just refer to my personal highlights. For those who enjoy these types of books it will be interesting, but those who are looking for something deeper this will be disappointing.
October 18, 2024
Το βιβλίο καλύπτει πολλά περισσότερα από δολοφονίες και βία. Ο συγγραφέας αφιερώνει περισσότερο χρόνο εμβαθύνοντας στην ψυχολογία των δολοφόνων, συζητώντας το θέμα της φύσης, της ανατροφής και τις περίπλοκες σχέσεις μεταξύ των εταίρων στο έγκλημα.
Πρόκειται για μια μακροσκελή αναφορά στο φαινόμενο του Serial Killing. Με γραφικά λεπτομερείς αφηγήσεις υποθέσεων από το παρελθόν και το παρόν. Ξεκινά με εγκλήματα του δέκατου ένατου αιώνα, τόσο στην Ευρώπη όσο και στην Αμερική, και στη συνέχεια εξελίσσεται, δεκαετία με τη δεκαετία, καθώς εξιστορεί περιστατικά μαζικών δολοφονιών και αυτούς που τα διαπράττουν. Θα βρείτε συναρπαστικά βιογραφικά για όλους τους γνωστούς serial killers, όπως ο Albert DeSalvo, ο Albert Fish, ο Ted Bundy, ο John Gacy, ο Henry Lee Lucas και ο Jeffrey Dahmer, καθώς και ορισμένοι κατά συρροή δολοφόνοι για τους οποίους μπορεί να μην έχετε ακούσει, από άλλες εποχές και μακρινά μέρη. Ο συγγραφέας είναι πολύ καλά ενημερωμένος και γράφει με αναλυτικό ύφος, αλλά δεν γίνεται ποτέ βαρετός! Συνιστάται ανεπιφύλακτα.
Καλή Ανάγνωση!
Πρόκειται για μια μακροσκελή αναφορά στο φαινόμενο του Serial Killing. Με γραφικά λεπτομερείς αφηγήσεις υποθέσεων από το παρελθόν και το παρόν. Ξεκινά με εγκλήματα του δέκατου ένατου αιώνα, τόσο στην Ευρώπη όσο και στην Αμερική, και στη συνέχεια εξελίσσεται, δεκαετία με τη δεκαετία, καθώς εξιστορεί περιστατικά μαζικών δολοφονιών και αυτούς που τα διαπράττουν. Θα βρείτε συναρπαστικά βιογραφικά για όλους τους γνωστούς serial killers, όπως ο Albert DeSalvo, ο Albert Fish, ο Ted Bundy, ο John Gacy, ο Henry Lee Lucas και ο Jeffrey Dahmer, καθώς και ορισμένοι κατά συρροή δολοφόνοι για τους οποίους μπορεί να μην έχετε ακούσει, από άλλες εποχές και μακρινά μέρη. Ο συγγραφέας είναι πολύ καλά ενημερωμένος και γράφει με αναλυτικό ύφος, αλλά δεν γίνεται ποτέ βαρετός! Συνιστάται ανεπιφύλακτα.
Καλή Ανάγνωση!
September 18, 2015
With its in-depth research and tons of literature studies, it turns out to have a more philosophical impact rather than a scientific one. And it really gives me ideas on psychopaths to idolize.
March 13, 2014
Excellent book giving history and reasons behind the devekopment of serial killers.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews