Publisher description: Drawing on sources that range from FBI statistics and film to dozens of actual cases from his thirty years of experience as an award-winning researcher, advocate, and forensic expert, Stark shows in terrifying detail how men can use coercive control to extend their dominance over time and through social space in ways that subvert womens autonomy, isolate them, and infiltrate the most intimate corners of their lives. Against this backdrop, Stark analyzes the cases of three women tried for crimes committed in the context of abuse, showing that their reactions are only intelligible when they are reframed as victims of coercive control rather than as battered wives.

The revolution unfolds -- The revolution stalled -- The proper measure of abuse -- The entrapment enigma -- Representing battered women -- Up to inequality -- The theory of coercive control -- The technology of coercive control -- When battered women kill -- For love or money -- The special reasonableness of battered women -- Conclusion: Freedom is not free.