ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
On track for dystopia
A new book on profiling reveals just how far down the road to a Big Brother society we've gone, says ANDY HEDGECOCK
Catch them young: an iPhone addict
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
ANDREAS Bernard’s extensive and diligent history of profiling is one of repression, disappointed dreams and a toxic shift in human psychology.
Beginning with an exploration of criminal profiling from the 1770s and its attempts to predict behaviour on the basis of facial features, he moves on to efforts by psychoanalysts and criminologists to use a battery of personal characteristics to identify potential arsonists and rapists.
The book concludes by considering the transformation of the utopian ideas of the digital counterculture of 1990s California into a technology of total control.
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