Rating: 
Summary: Utterly without sympathy
Review: Oh come on ! "Lack the emotions that add up to the defining characteristics of concience" ? Macchiavelli is turning over in his grave.
Rating: 
Summary: Important
Review: People often try to understand the motivations of psychopaths, as though they had normal consciences. "Well, they'll feel guilty, etc." But this book lets the reader know that psychopaths are almost a different species emotionally. Teaching a psychopath to reform would be as futile as trying to teach a gold fish to tap dance. In that alone, I think this book is invaluable. It helps you identify psychopaths, and lets you know that the best thing is to just stay clear, if possible.
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Summary: Hare's Survival Manual
Review: Reading "Without Conscience" a few years ago was enormously beneficial to me in understanding a relative who was almost certainly a psychopath. As the situation surrounding this person became more dangerous and extreme, I was compelled to get qualifed advice from a forensically trained psychologist. That good advice, and the fundamentals presented clearly in Hare's book, may very well have saved lives.
Rating: 
Summary: read it now or pay later !
Review: right on, to the point,and no wasted words. it's a very good book, and it could be a much better book. Hare implies that the world is divided into two camps, psychpaths and normals. In other words, he establishes a polarity between the good guys and the bad guys. After you've been around the block a few times, you realize that there are plenty of shades of grey in between. Hare gives this group the designation "sub criminal", but even that's simplistic. There are probably more people with borderline sociopathic personalities, or those who manifest some of the antisocial traits, but are far from being full tilt psychopaths. It's this in between group of personalities that Hare loses in his either/or model. Also, Hare speaks to normal parents who have psychopathic children, but he ignores the family dynamics of normal children born to psychopathic parents. What happens to them ? Still, a fine introductory book that anyone can benefit from reading. It deserves to be expanded and refined.
Rating:
Summary: The creepy folk
Review: Robert Hare's book is a landmark publication and very frequently referenced by other professionals, which speaks to the respect in which his colleagues hold his research and writings. This is an excellent book. It is well-written, lucid, and aimed at the lay person. His clarification of the terms "psychopath," "sociopath" and "anti-social personality disorder" are quite useful.
My only problem with the book is that Hare's examples come largely from the criminal world, where many psychopaths end up, and in which he worked for many years. Because of this, we may lose sight of the fact that many "psychopaths" are NOT criminals, but produce enormous chaos and emotional mayhem in the lives of others -- others who do not understand this disorder and cannot make sense of what has happened to them.
Psychopaths by their very nature are con artists, but not all are thieves and murderers. Some are just emotionally abusive, cruel, manipulative, controlling and bring families, employees, employers and acquaintances to ruin in a hundred other ways.
Empty, pathetic and destructive, they run the gamut from the emotionally frozen, disengaged, cruel parent to the serial killer -- all marked by one thing, their inability to relate empathetically to others.
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Summary: A "MUST READ" FOR PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS
Review: The easiest and most concise book written for the student or interested layman. I especially liked the profile checklist. This book is a keeper for my library and I highly recommend it as an important tool for psychology students. Thanks Dr. Hare.
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Summary: THERE IS NONE SO DANGEROUS AS THE PSYCHOPATHIC MIND
Review: The human mind is fascinating, complex, intricate and powerful. In my psychology studies and years as a counsellor, I have encountered individuals with a vast array of socio, economic and mental problems. Nothing has perplexed and intrigued me more than the mind of a psychopath. Robert Hare is accurate in his statement, "Not all psychopaths are criminals and not all crimals are psychopaths." We know that many psychopaths have certain emotional/interpersonal traits in common, just as we understand that they are predators with the ability to lie, charm and manipulate, like serial killers John Wayne Gacy and the "typical nice guy next door," Ted Bundy. They know right from wrong but have no conscience or remorse for their actions, and are able, if only in their own minds, to justify what they do, and why they do it. Are psychopaths truly born, or do childhood events cause them to be who they are? For all the studies and research that has been undertaken, we still have so much more to learn. The reality is, since psychopaths "tend to blend in with the rest of society," most of us have or will encounter a psychopath at some point and time in our lives. How will be know? In many cases we simply will not know, at least not before it is too late. There are signs and signals that the author brings to our attention that will provide insight on how to recognize psychopathic behaviour and how we can protect ourselves. Robert Hare helps us to understand the mind of a psychopath based on 25 years of scientific research. This is the most extensive book I have encountered on this topic, short of a textbook, and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the study of the psychopathic mind.
Rating: 
Summary: Too clinical; nothing new; sensationalist
Review: The layout is confusing. It jumps all over the place. And not as well researched as it should be NB. the Lawrencia Bembenek example does not belong here. It skims alot of sections. It tends to perpetuate the myth that psychopaths are all serial killers. Not enough in-depth cases. Doesn't take advantage of the new research on brain abnormalities - nothing new here. Not a comprehensive overview of a psychopath. Eg. it doesn't mention one word about the connection between substance abuse and psychopathy. A poorly organized and edited book. Comes nowhere near Hervey Cleckley's "The Mask of Sanity". This is a masterpiece on this subject even though it was written originally in the fifties when there was less medical knowledge of the subject. This book really gives you the flavour of what a psychopath is. Neither books however deals much with the victims of psychopaths. This book comes across as being a hybrid of a breathless tabloid piece and a poorly-written thesis. A mishmash. As a supposedly premier researcher on the subject, I expected a much better book instead of this - it reads like a transcribed dictaphone recording dashed off in one sitting by the author. Still worth investigating as there aren't too many current books on the subject; and thankfully it doesn't contain any Freudian pyscho-analytic mumbo-jumbo.
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Summary: The Psychopath Now Stands Naked!
Review: The Reviewer is the author of Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity, (which is also on Amazon.com). Dr, Hare has given us a textbook that read like a fasinating novel! It's full of insightful and in-depth examples. The author has taken a complex topic and broken it down into basic and often seemingly simplistic components. He makes much reference to his "Psychpathy Checklist," but when you've got a good thing going, why not? When it comes to the forensic experts in this arena of better understanding the these "Societal Rats," Dr. Hare is, perhaps, leading the pack. He's certainly one of the Top-Dogs!
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Summary: One of the most revealing books that I have ever read
Review: This book is a must for anyone living in our society today. The section on white collar or corporate psycopaths is mandatory reading for anyone who works in a medium to large corporation. I wish that this book was available 20 years ago since it would have saved me from several bad situations.
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