"This is an important book. It is the best work that has appeared in the field in a long, long while. It’s a fascinating, terribly overdue historical assessment, a semi-supplement to Trovillo’s (1939; 1940) early history and a personalityfocused extension of Bunn’s (1998) dissertation on the history of the ‘lie detector’. Alder’s book is an account of “…the lie detector [which] promised to redeem the innocent, scarify the guilty, and ensure political loyalty…” from an examination of persons and personalities of primary historical forefathers, Leonarde Keeler, Dr. John Larson, Dr. William Moulton Marston and, in a limited and terribly understated way, Fred E. Inbau, J.D."(...)