Introduction 1. On Killing, Murder and Extreme Violence in Biological and Historical Perspective 2. The Multiple Worlds of Multiple Murderers 3. From Normal to Brutal: Atrocities and the Persons Who Commit Them 4. None Too Tidy: Interacting Variables in the Development of Serial Murder, Mass Killing, and Atrocities. Conclusion: Beyond the Usual Distinctions.

Multiple killings by serial or spree killers and the mass violence seen in war crimes and other atrocities have typically been understood as discrete category types, which can foster the view that there are fundamentally different kinds of human beings, including "deviants" who are innately given to sadism or lack of empathy. This book considers the violence of these "deviants" in terms of larger questions about human violence, including analysis of macro-level phenomena such as genocide, mass rape and killing, and torture occurring under conditions of war, state authorization, or political upheaval.

Robert Shanafelt (1957-2014) was an associate professor of anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Georgia Southern University.