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Encyclopedia of Race and Crime. Ed. by Helen T. Greene and Shaun L. Gabbidon. Los Angles: Sage, 2009. 2 vols. Acid free. $350.00/set (ISBN: 978-1-4129-5085-5).
Regardless of how one views the demographic makeup of the United States, be it "melting pot" or "salad bowl" or some other metaphor, there is no getting around the fact that the heterogeneous nature of the populace has been a source of friction since the inception of the republic. One flashpoint in particular ignites repeatedly down through the centuries, and it is to be found at the intersection of race and crime, the very subject of this two-volume set, Encyclopedia of Race and Crime. Charges of police profiling, the ongoing saga of O. J. Simpson, and seemingly daily reports of ethnic gang warfare only serve to underscore the significance of this topic. The antecedent and contemporary issues involved, the scattered nature of information in this regard, and an alternative to what is presented to the public by the mass media are posited in the introduction as underlying the need for a work of this type (xxviii). This reviewer concurs that...