While the power and utility of forensic linguistics is taken for granted today, this was not always the case. The world of scholarship was slow to appreciate the degree to which written language betrays its authorship and pedigree. The “Phalaris Controversy” is a famous, and striking, example of the use of textual analysis in resolving an acrimonious intellectual brick-fight.
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There is a very good miniseries playing on Netflix right now called Manhunt: Unabomber. It is a drama about the pursuit and capture of Theodore Kaczynski, the so-called “Unabomber” who confounded law enforcement for decades until he was finally captured in 1996. His case had been the longest and costliest in American law enforcement history. The drama closely tracks real events; the producers of the series (which stars Sam Worthington) made a conscious effort to reproduce the facts of the case with fidelity.
Quintus Curtius 
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