REVIEWS Alder's masterful narrative relies not only on his clever selection of iconoclastic characters..., but also on his detailed treatment... [A]n engaging and informative read..., the ideal textbook for college-level seminars in a variety of disciplines, including political science, history, sociology, and psychology. The book provides a fertile ground for a multidisciplinary examination of a largely misunderstood device that has fascinated, and mostly misled the American public. Alder spins a yarn of scientific innovation and personal vituperation set against the backdrop of mid-20th-century America…. While painting a rich, complex portrait of these men, Alder remains admirably skeptical of the machine itself, which he says is a uniquely American invention, designed to satisfy "a nation obsessed by criminal disorder and political corruption." A historian of science whose account of the meter was hugely popular, Alder here wires up another fascinating story. A two-track approach guides his tale of the polygraph: the lives of two men who in the 1920s launched the "cardio-pneumo-psychograph," as one of them dubbed the machine, and American society's peculiar receptivity to a device that has never passed scientific muster…. This engrossing portrait of two lives ruled by the lie detector is enhanced by Alder's cultural clarity about the credence accorded to the mechanical confessional. The lie detector and its strange persistent grip on the American imagination offers rich material for Mr. Alder to work with. How many stories require William James, Gertrude Stein and Dick Tracy for the telling, not to mention criminals like the Torso Murderer of Cleveland? Stir into the mix a mutually hostile coterie of inventors, scientific visionaries and outright hucksters, and you have the ingredients for a heady brew. In the early 20th century... scientists believed that they had found the perfect lie detector. The story of how they hawked it, using it for everything from crime catching to comic-strip plots, makes for a rollicking good time in Ken Alder's The Lie Detectors. A "revealing, colloquial social history..." INTERVIEWS
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