Review ofSex, Drugs and Body Counts: The Politics of Numbers in Global Crime and Conflict, edited by Peter Andreas and Kelly M. Greenhill

Abstract

Andreas, Peter, and Greenhill, Kelly M. (Eds.). Sex, Drugs, and Body Counts: The Politics of Numbers in Global Crime and Conflict, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010). 287 pp. ISBN 978-0-8014-4861-4 (cloth); ISBN 978-0-8014-7618-1 (pbk). The ten scholarly papers in Sex, Drugs and Body Counts explore the generation and propagation of numbers that drive policy decisions in the U.S. government regarding human trafficking, drug trade, and armed conflict (including the war on terror). Each of these papers, written by different authors, provides an illuminating insight into how some of the numbers we hear or read in the news are derived. While the general message of the papers tends to be depressing, namely that the numbers driving U.S. policy vary from being slightly suspect to clearly fabricated, the book does provide positive examples of how accurate numbers can be obtained and how the numbers that are being used can be interpreted. As a teaching resource, the book provides instructors an opportunity to deepen their understanding of how quantitative data are used in U.S. policy, allowing them to explore these issues in class. Individual papers from the book could be used in a general education course (either in mathematics or in a field related to the topics) as a way to introduce students to reading quantitatively dense material. In a course more focused on the topics of the book and with a more quantitatively literate audience, the entire book could probably be assigned as reading. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License Cover Page Footnote Aaron Montgomery is Associate Professor of Mathematics and Chair of the Mathematics Department. He has been involved with Quantitative Literacy for about seven years and has been the Webmaster for SIGMAA-QL for the past six years. For the past two years, he has been teaching two courses in the Douglas Honors College: Game Theory And Politics, and Collapse, both of which use mathematical techniques to describe human interactions with each other and the natural world. This book review is available in Numeracy: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/numeracy/vol4/iss1/art8 Sex, Drugs and Body Counts, The Politics of Numbers in Global Crime and Conflict is a compilation of nine papers by different authors along with introductory and concluding chapters by the editors, Peter Andreas and Kelly M. Greenhill. Based on the topics presented and the academic fields of the authors, the book is clearly aimed at those interested in sociology, political science, and international relations. This orientation may make the book too content-heavy for an introductory course in quantitative literacy (QL). However, it does not mean that the book does not offer anything to the instructor of such a course. Although including all the papers in the book in a QL course would perhaps be inappropriate, including one or two carefully chosen papers could be very beneficial. And while some of the papers are not ideal for the student, they do provide an opportunity for instructors to extend their breadth of knowledge on topics where numbers are extremely important, yet difficult to determine.