From the Tokyo subway bombing and the siege at Waco to the mass suicide of Jim Jones's followers in Guyana, evidence of cult activity has surged in recent decades. Abgrall, a practicing psychiatrist and professional criminologist, has spent 15 years researching cult phenomena and presents here a thorough analysis of their psychodynamics and the mysteries that surround cult life. He delves into recruitment, physical and psychic conditioning methods, the mental predisposition of gurus and followers, and the treatment of former cult members.

BIZARRE STUFF, AMAZING FACTS, ASTONISHING MYSTERIES, NATURAL WONDERS, LITTLE-KNOWN PEOPLE, USEFUL TIPS AND MUCH, MUCH MORE.
From crime, movies and music to science, history and literature, this book offers an incredible array of intriguing top-10 lists.

Ranging from the playful, to the fact-filled, and to the thoughtful, this collection tracks the fortunes of Walt Disney's flagship character. From the first full-fledged review of his screen debut in November 1928 to the present day, Mickey Mouse has won millions of fans and charmed even the harshest of critics. Almost half of the eighty-one texts in A Mickey Mouse Reader document the Mouse's rise to glory from that first cartoon, Steamboat Willie, through his seventh year when his first color animation, The Band Concert, was released. They include two important early critiques, one by the American culture critic Gilbert Seldes and one by the famed English novelist E. M. Forster.

In the tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, an ambitious and accessible work of undercover journalism that fully investigates our food system to explain what keeps Americans from eating well—and what we can do about it. Getting Americans to eat well is one of today’s hottest social issues; it’s at the forefront of Michelle Obama’s agenda and widely covered in the media—from childhood obesity to store brands trying to make their food healthier. Yet most Americans still eat poorly, and award-winning journalist Tracie McMillan wanted to know why.

Twenty years after the end of communism, the history of Central and Eastern Europe still sparks intense discussions in the former Soviet bloc, as contested memories, primarily about communist repression and WWII, are relived. This volume goes beyond the state-centred approach that so often characterises the study of memory-issues in post-communist countries and highlights two interrelated factors that account for the recent proliferation of memory games in Central and Eastern Europe including, but not limited to, the growth in number of political and social actors who try to elaborate and impose new memory norms into society and the 'internationalization' of conflicted memories.