A Criminal History of Mankind was published by Granada in 1984. The book is Wilson’s attempt to write a comprehensive history of human violence — from prehistoric tribal warfare through the Roman arena, the Inquisition, the French Revolution, Jack the Ripper, the Nazis, and the serial killers of the twentieth century — unified by a single theoretical framework.
Wilson’s argument is that crime, like art and mysticism, is an expression of the will to power — the evolutionary drive toward self-assertion and the expansion of consciousness. The criminal and the saint are engaged in the same project (breaking free of the “robot,” the automatic consciousness that dominates ordinary life) but the criminal takes a destructive shortcut: instead of expanding his own consciousness, he asserts his will by destroying someone else’s. The serial killer, in Wilson’s analysis, is not an aberration but an extreme expression of a universal human tendency, and the history of crime is inseparable from the history of consciousness.
The book is massive — over 700 pages — and ranges with characteristic Wilson breadth across criminology, psychology, evolutionary biology, and philosophy. The case studies are vivid and often horrifying, but Wilson’s interest is always theoretical: what does this act of violence tell us about the human condition? The analysis draws on Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Wilson’s own concept of “Faculty X,” and a somewhat idiosyncratic reading of evolutionary theory.
Collecting A Criminal History of Mankind
First edition (Granada, London, 1984): Trade paperback original.
Market values:
- First edition, fine: $20–$60
- Hardcover editions: $30–$80