Richard Stivers is the author of Hair of the Dog: Irish Drinking and Its American Stereotype; The Culture of Cynicism: American Morality in Decline; Technology as Magic; Shades of Loneliness; and The Illusion of Freedom and Equality. He is an emeritus distinguished professor of sociology at Illinois State University.

Richard Stivers' concern is with the social construction of evil, that is, with how modern societies, in a partly unconscious way, create evil as a category of the sacred and how symbols, myths, and rituals of evil are related to this. He is interested, moreover, in how modern societies provoke individuals to commit evil actions.
This fascinating and stimulating book is the first attempt to work out in detail how the concepts of the sacred, symbol, myth, and ritual form a cultural configuration in modern technological societies, and not just in traditional societies.