Six Days in August
The Story of Stockholm Syndrome
-
- $20.99
Publisher Description
A rollicking account of the bizarre hostage drama that gave rise to the term "Stockholm syndrome."
On the morning of August 23, 1973, a man wearing a wig, makeup, and a pair of sunglasses walked into the main branch of Sveriges Kreditbank, a prominent bank in central Stockholm. He ripped out a submachine gun, fired it into the ceiling, and shouted, "The party starts!" This was the beginning of a six-day hostage crisis—and media circus—that would mesmerize the world, drawing into its grip everyone from Sweden’s most notorious outlaw to the prime minister himself.
As policemen and reporters encircled the bank, the crime-in-progress turned into a high-stakes thriller broadcast on live television. Inside the building, meanwhile, complicated emotional relationships developed between captors and captives that would launch a remarkable new concept into the realm of psychology, hostage negotiation, and popular culture.
Based on a wealth of previously unpublished sources, including rare film footage and unprecedented access to the main participants, Six Days in August captures the surreal events in their entirety, on an almost minute-by-minute basis. It is a rich human drama that blurs the lines between loyalty and betrayal, obedience and defiance, fear and attraction—and a groundbreaking work of nonfiction that forces us to consider "Stockholm syndrome" in an entirely new light.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian King (The Trial of Adolf Hitler) delivers an entertaining, minute-by-minute account of the 1973 Swedish bank robbery and hostage crisis that gave rise to the term "Stockholm syndrome." Opening with the moment gunman Jan-Erik Olsson entered Sveriges Kreditbank, King chronicles the taking of four bank workers as hostages; the arrival of Olsson's former cellmate, Clark Olofsson (whose release Olsson had demanded, along with cash and free passage), at the bank; police efforts to bring the stalemate to an end; and the dramatic, tear gas driven finale. Drawing on newspaper accounts and interviews, King brings readers into the stifling bank vault where Olsson and Olofsson hunker with their captives, documents debates among police and politicians over how to handle the crisis, follows journalists as they report on the story, and notes that one of the hostages had a brief affair with Olofsson after the ordeal was over. In a thorough analysis of the syndrome itself (defined by psychiatrist Nils Bejerot as "a paradox of common interest between hostage-taker and his victims"), King notes that the phenomenon's wide acceptance in law enforcement and psychology circles, as well its permanent place in popular culture, belie its relatively rarity in hostage cases. True crime fans will love this engrossing and exhaustive account.
