The core of the concept of a bribe is 'an inducement improperly influencing the performance of a public function meant to be gratuitously exercised.' The concept of a bribe contracts or expands with cultural conventions, laws, and practices, but does not disappear from cultures. Bribery has existed from the Egypt of the pharoahs to ABSCAM and th Gulf and Lockheed slushfund scandals. This book chronicles such bribers and bribe-takers, including politicians, procurement agents, and popes; imperial agents, royal governors, and congressmen; Federal judges; members of major Wall Street law firms; and Archbishop Thomas Becket, Chancellor Francis Bacon, John Quincy Adams, and Abraham Lincoln. By tracing the way bribery changes through time, this study illustrates various cultures' ambivalence toward bribery as an idea and an act. The discussion encompasses ethical, religious, and legal injunctions against bribery, beginning with the Judeo-Christian condemnation of judges whose decisions could be bought and sold. The accounts of bribery discussed are designed to distinguish between gifts that are spiritual and social necessities and the fundamentally immoral act of bribery. Chapter notes, a table of cases, and subject index. (Publisher summary modified)