Scandalous Conduct

Drunken disorderliness. Cowardice in battle. Writing bad cheques. Vulgarity. Sexual indecency. Adultery. Following courts martial for such disgraceful behaviour, hundreds of Canadian officers lost their commissions during the First and Second World Wars. Scandalous Conduct investigates the changing definitions that shaped the quintessential honour crime known as “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.” The dishonour represented a direct challenge to the discredited officer’s prestige, livelihood, and sense of manhood. Drawing on fascinating court cases never before studied, Scandalous Conduct concludes that military honour was not a stable concept; instead it depended on social circumstances and disciplinary requirements.

We all relish a good scandal—the larger the figure (governor, judge) and more shocking the particulars (diapers, cigars)—the better. But why do people feel compelled to act out their tangled psychodramas on the national stage, and why do we so enjoy watching them, hurling our condemnations while savoring every lurid detail? With "pointed daggers of prose" (The New Yorker), Laura Kipnis examines contemporary downfall sagas to lay bare the American psyche: what we desire, what we punish, and what we disavow. She delivers virtuoso analyses of four paradigmatic cases: a lovelorn astronaut, an unhinged judge, a venomous whistleblower, and an over-imaginative memoirist. The motifs are classic—revenge, betrayal, ambition, madness—though the pitfalls are ones we all negotiate daily. After all, every one of us is a potential scandal in the making: failed self-knowledge and colossal self-deception—the necessary ingredients—are our collective plight. In How to Become a Scandal, bad behavior is the entry point for a brilliant cultural romp as well as an anti-civics lesson. "Shove your rules," says scandal, and no doubt every upright citizen, deep within, cheers the transgression—as long as it's someone else's head on the block.

Stone Barrington will need to keep calm and carry on if he wants to survive his English vacation in this “addictive”* thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling series. After a series of nonstop adventures, Stone Barrington is eager for some peace and quiet in a rustic British setting. But no sooner does he land in England than he’s beset by an outrageous demand from a beautiful lady, and an offer he can’t refuse. Unfortunately, Stone quickly learns that his new acquisition comes with some undesired strings attached—namely, a deadly mystery involving the complex relationships of the local gentry, and a relentless adversary who raises the stakes with every encounter. Stone’s restful country vacation is looking like yet another troublesome situation, but with his tireless aplomb—and the help of a few friends—he is more than up to the challenge.

Scandalous Conduct investigates the complex meanings of honour and dishonour as revealed by general courts martial and dismissal sentences in the Canadian officer corps during the First and Second World Wars.

Drunken disorderliness. Cowardice in battle. Writing bad cheques. Vulgarity. Sexual indecency. Adultery. Following courts martial for such disgraceful behaviour, hundreds of Canadian officers lost their commissions during the First and Second World Wars. Scandalous Conduct investigates the changing definitions that shaped the quintessential honour crime known as “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.” The dishonour represented a direct challenge to the discredited officer’s prestige, livelihood, and sense of manhood. Drawing on fascinating court cases never before studied, Scandalous Conduct concludes that military honour was not a stable concept; instead it depended on social circumstances and disciplinary requirements.