Ziyad Marar is deputy managing director and publishing director at Sage Publications.

• Introduction 1. Homo credens: the believer 2. Deceiving ourselves: you can't always know what you want 3. Deceiving each other: the techniques of sincerity 4. "It's beyond my control": and other moral masquerades 5. To thine own self be true?

"Marar takes it upon himself to fully explore our two-faced nature in his book, and very enjoyable this exploration is. His references are wide-ranging, covering philosophy, psychology, literature and modern culture, and his language has an easy-going, humorous, down-to-earth quality. This is no obscure philosophical tract, but an intelligently written essay on one of life's more complex areas. Deception is an essential text if we are to disillusion ourselves that in our dealings with each other everything is as straightforward as it first appears." - Culture Wars "For anyone involved in the narrative business (historians, ethicists, students of ideologies, religionists), this could be a very enlightening book, written with reference to a host of interesting references from the literature and the arts and leading the reader to be disturbed - a very good thing." - Australian Journal of Adult Learning

Ziyad Marar is deputy managing director and publishing director at Sage Publications.

• Introduction 1. Homo credens: the believer 2. Deceiving ourselves: you can't always know what you want 3. Deceiving each other: the techniques of sincerity 4. "It's beyond my control": and other moral masquerades 5. To thine own self be true?

"Marar takes it upon himself to fully explore our two-faced nature in his book, and very enjoyable this exploration is. His references are wide-ranging, covering philosophy, psychology, literature and modern culture, and his language has an easy-going, humorous, down-to-earth quality. This is no obscure philosophical tract, but an intelligently written essay on one of life's more complex areas. Deception is an essential text if we are to disillusion ourselves that in our dealings with each other everything is as straightforward as it first appears." - Culture Wars "For anyone involved in the narrative business (historians, ethicists, students of ideologies, religionists), this could be a very enlightening book, written with reference to a host of interesting references from the literature and the arts and leading the reader to be disturbed - a very good thing." - Australian Journal of Adult Learning

Ziyad Marar is deputy managing director and publishing director at Sage Publications.

• Introduction 1. Homo credens: the believer 2. Deceiving ourselves: you can't always know what you want 3. Deceiving each other: the techniques of sincerity 4. "It's beyond my control": and other moral masquerades 5. To thine own self be true?

"Marar takes it upon himself to fully explore our two-faced nature in his book, and very enjoyable this exploration is. His references are wide-ranging, covering philosophy, psychology, literature and modern culture, and his language has an easy-going, humorous, down-to-earth quality. This is no obscure philosophical tract, but an intelligently written essay on one of life's more complex areas. Deception is an essential text if we are to disillusion ourselves that in our dealings with each other everything is as straightforward as it first appears." - Culture Wars "For anyone involved in the narrative business (historians, ethicists, students of ideologies, religionists), this could be a very enlightening book, written with reference to a host of interesting references from the literature and the arts and leading the reader to be disturbed - a very good thing." - Australian Journal of Adult Learning