Shlomo G. Shoham is a world renowned criminologist, recipient of the Selinglueck Award from the American Society of Criminology in 1977 and the Israel Prize Laureate for 2003. He has published some 90 books in 20 languages and 2000 articles in 30 languages in the areas of criminology, psychology, philosophy, sociology, theology and art. He has developed an interdisciplinary personality theory which is most suitable for the explanation of deviance and alienation.

• Contents: Foreword by Giovanni Filoramo; Acknowledgements; Introduction -- The Triumph of the Vanquished; Part One: The Abyss -- The Ontological Split; Jews and Greeks -- A Fateful Couple; Christian and Jewish Gnosis; Syncretism and Gnosis; The Tresses of the Mind; Sin; Part Two: The Mythology of the Away and Beyond -- The Pardes: Forbidden Orchard; Unio Mystica: Clandestine Complementarities; The Avatar: Incarnation of Synchronic Transcendence in Time; Notes; Giora Shoham's Published Works and His Theory of Personality; Index.