A Brief History of Cheating (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798278364542)

A Brief History of Cheating is a fast, funny, and uncomfortably honest tour of how humans learned to bend the rules-and then rewrote them.

From rigged ancient games and "miraculous" test scores to creative accounting, workplace credit-stealing, dating-app double lives, and democracy on easy mode, this book traces cheating from playground to parliament. Along the way, it pokes at our favorite excuses:

• "Everyone does it."

• "It's not technically against the rules."

• "We were on a break."

Blending psychology, history, and sharp satire, the unnamed narrator shows how cheating isn't just a personal failure-it's often built into systems that reward results over fairness. And just when you're feeling comfortably superior, the book quietly turns the spotlight back on you.

Part of N.L. Bright's "Brief History" series (Lying, Stealing, Cheating), this volume asks a harder question than "Is cheating wrong?"-it asks:

Who and what are you willing to cheat for?

Spoiler: if you finish convinced you always play fair...
that might be your most elegant cheat yet.