Character Assassination throughout the Ages

Character assassination is the deliberate destruction of an individual's reputation. Most notable victims of character assassination are political and religious leaders, officials, celebrities, writers, scientists, athletes, and other public figures. 'Character assassins' target the private lives, behavior, values, and identities of their victims. The editors and contributors to this volume have gathered cases and insights from the fields of history, political science, and psychology to track many common characteristics of character assassination, as well as to describe their unique features over different times and places. The authors show that character assassination is a timeless, cross-cultural phenomenon that reveals itself in a variety of forms and methods typical for every cultural, political, and technological epoch.