Coercive control is the most common and devastating means used to subjugate women in personal and family life. Drawing on FBI statistics, health records, interviews with victims and perpetrators, and forensic analysis of dramatic cases from the author's experience, Evan Stark, a leading proponent and scholar, provides the authoritative description of coercive control. The book identifies its elements, dynamics, and consequences, including the harms it poses to liberty rights and privacy rights; and proposes effective interventions, including new laws and means of policing and supporting perpetrators and victims.

Sweeping aside outdated, entrenched views of woman abuse, Coercive Control emphasizes the importance of addressing women's diminishment and subordination in personal life as part of the global equity agenda.