Customer Rating:  
Summary: A partial review
Comment: This book came to me from a professor who thought it would help me develop a theoretical framework for my thesis. I found the book to be of little use, however. In reading the book, I encountered serious errors in logic that shook my confidence in it as a reliable source of information. This caused me to put the book down after reading only the first two chapters. That's why this review is just a partial one. It focuses on the second chapter's discussion of Enrico Ferri and of positivism.
What I find most startling in the second chapter are the logical errors in the authors' discussion of Ferri's positivistic approach to penal code reform in fascist Italy. The authors argue that Ferri's positivism, and "positivistic theory" in general, legitimizes and reinforces totalitarian forms of government. The authors write:
The end of Ferri's career...highlights one of the implications of positivistic theory, namely, the ease with which it fits into totalitarian patterns of government. It is centered on the core idea of superior knowledge and wisdom of the scientific expert, who, on the basis of his studies, decides what kind of human beings his fellow men are who commit crime, and who, on the basis of this knowledge and scientific insight, prescribes appropriate treatment without concern for public opinion and without consent from the person so diagnosed (i.e., the criminal). (p.35--Note: I borrowed an older edition of this book, so the page number cited here might not match the page containing this quote in the new edition.)
This critique (and vilification) of positivistic theory, however, is preceded by the authors' acknowledgement that Ferri's positivistic approach to penal reform was rejected by Italy's fascist government. By the authors' own account, then, Ferri's positivism apparently did NOT fit easily into the totalitarian regime's agenda.
The authors also tell us that Ferri later became more widely accepted among the fascist elite when he "softened" his positivistic approach. That Ferry adapted to his totalitarian milieu by softening rather than by hardening his positivism suggests that there was a basic antagonism between the totalitarian government and Ferri's positivistic theory. Unaccountably, however, the authors treat Ferri's adaptation as evidence of harmony between the two, flatly asserting a positive relationship when the evidence suggests an inverse one. The evidence (as presented by the authors) indicates that the "harder" one's positivism is, the less one fits into totalitarian systems. Somehow, the authors arrive at the opposite conclusion and thereby contradict themselves.
Moreover, the position taken by the authors on the relationship between totalitarianism and positivistic theory seems to be entirely at odds with what fascist dictators take for granted in their thinking. If positivism is the research program, a' la Lakatos, that guides scientific theory-building--which involves explaining complex phenomena in terms of empirically-based, parsimonious, falsifiable law-like generalizations--then positivism must be seen as diametrically opposed to the kind of relativistic thinking that informs totalitarian fascist governments. Take, for instance, what Mussolini says about fascism:
Fascism is a super-relativistic movement because it has never attempted to clothe its complicated and powerful mental attitude with a definite program but has succeeded by following its ever changing individual intuition. Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition.... If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be bearers of an external objective truth...then there is nothing more relativistic than fascist attitudes and activity.... From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist deduces that everybody is free to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to carry it out with all possible energy. (Quoted in E. Ross, ed. Beyond the Myths of Culture, pp. xix-xxix)
The authors' insistence that positivistic theory easily "fits into totalitarian patterns of government" belies not only the evidence they present themselves but also the explicit relativist formulations of the Duce of Fascism himself! The anthropologist Marvin Harris further illuminates the conflict between positivism and relativist thinking:
The problem is not that we have had too much positivistic social science but that we have had too little. The atrocities of the twentieth century have been carried out precisely by people who were ignorant of or vehemently opposed to positivistic social science (e.g., Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini). Too many anthropologists seem to have forgotten there is a flip side to relativism, phenomenology, and anti-positivism--the side on which relativists who denounce reason and scientific knowledge construct the world in their own image. (R. Borofsky, ed. Assessing Cultural Anthropology, p.74)
By the end of the second chapter, the authors' defective logic and blatant misrepresentation of positivism as the handmaiden of totalitarian regimes led me to conclude that this book would be of little value to me in developing a theoretical framework for my thesis.
Customer Rating:
Summary: best theory text book
Comment: This is hands down the best crim theory text book available. It's designed for undergrads, but it provides a brief, thorough, and direct synopsis of all the most important theories a grad student might study for comprehensive exams, so it's a great way to review and to make sure you're covering all your bases. The only reason I'm giving it 4 instead of 5 stars is because this edition is already 7 years old. A ton of research has come out in the last few years, and I think theoretical topography has changed quite a bit, especially with self control theory, developmental and life course perspectives, and recent work on communities and crime dominating the field. A must-have for any criminology grad student.
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