The American Confidence Man,

From dust jacket notes: "This book was prepared with the assistance of many of the great confidence men who flourished between 1910 and 1950, the period of greatest known activity in the confidence rackets. However, since the principles on which the confidence games operate are basic, and the psychological factors involved timeless, this book constitutes a classic in its field....The field work for this book was done by the author using well-established techniques of anthropological, criminological, and linguistic research. He has explored a large number of criminal subcultures including thieves, gamblers, safecrackers, forgers, counterfeiters, circus and carnival drifters, short change artists, criminal narcotic addicts, and other professional criminals both in this country and abroad. This book should give the reader a better understanding of one phase of professional crime, but it is not intended as an expose. Doctor Maurer does not intend to appear as an apologist for the criminal,