Christopher Hadnagy’s book “Unmasking the social engineer” appeared in 2014. It covers the main aspects of non verbal communications. Starting with the first chapters on hands, arms, torso and legs - the table of content looks like an ordinary book on this topic. In contrast to most books Christopher backs up every statement with scientific research. By reading just the first few chapters you easily learn how to decipher the magic of sales men, politicians and many public speakers. Your learning process is simplified by the various photographs within this book and the very detailed verbal description.

Do not expect this book to be an ordinary “how to read body language” book. It goes way deeper and discusses how non verbal communications and the processing of emotions are linked. This topic fills the second half of the book and is as well heavily based on science. Based on his long cooperation with Professor Ekman Christopher Hadnagy unmasks micro facial expressions

• a very powerful knowledge. While reading the book I was very impressed by the authors honesty, as he reminds you over and over again that reading the body language shows you the emotions currently processed by a person. This however does not explain the reason behind the emotion. Simply put: “You always have to ask and search for the reason of what you see.”

The last part of the book focusses on the processing of emotions and how to trick that process to produce emotions desired - the craft of an social engineer. To do that you need understand the logical and non-logical processing of emotions in a humans brain. This chapter is complex and interesting at the same time. It makes this book special and worth reading. In conclusion: Go get the book and read it over the weekend. It’s great!

Cheers!