404 Reviews of security. The lead chapter in this section presents a dramaturgical analysis of polic- ing. While this piece is devoid of much empirical evidence, it presents an interesting conceptualization of the police. Perhaps one of the more theoretically sophisticated pieces, found in Chapter Ten, presents an alternative approach for the understanding of safety. Utilizing interview data, the author demonstrates how an inter- pretive sociological perspective may be used to understand how personal safety is constructed. This constructivist framework in conceptualizing the concept of safety is augmented by demonstrating a useful typol- ogy. Interviews are situated within a typology that considers perception of safety alongside expectations and perception of controllabili- ty. Several of the chapters are of note to crim- inologists utilizing a comparative perspec- tive in applying well-established theories to cases in Europe. For instance, one chapter applies the Chicago School idea of social disorganization to juvenile offending in Antwerp. The volume does have some weaknesses and limitations. Most of this is related to the specific scope of most of the articles that are spread over a wide variety of topics. While comparativists will find this a useful volume, many of the contributions are derived from either Belgium or the Netherlands, limiting the structural space that contextualizes the studies. The volume could have benefited from two or more macro-oriented chapters to position the varying contributions and provide greater breath of insight. That said, the studies give a much-needed understand- ing of crime and security from an internation- al and comparative perspective. In all, the individual selections in this vol- ume represent a broad spectrum of topics, contributing to a whole swath of the spec- trum in the global study of crime, law, and policing. On the whole, these contributions seem amorphous and often divergent. Put- ting all of these pieces in a single volume must have been an arduous task. The unify- ing framework can be found in the conclud- ing chapter that examines police science within an interactionist lens. Adopting a dra- maturgical framework promulgated by Goff- man, the author of this epilogue proposes that systems of justice are involved in an iterative interaction with other social sys- tems. While this selection focuses on the police, it may be useful to consider many of the issues raised in the book within this framework. While the book gives much-needed analy- sis and insight into the problems of security, crime, and justice, the volume could have benefited from a section or chapter situating the works within a broad sociological per- spective, offering a critical account of sys- tems of social control and the requirements of late-stage capitalism. For example, several selections deal directly with the privatization of security, but most give a superficial glance at what economic conditions may underlie them. The net expansion of surveillance and state control is highly problematic and poses genuine threats to democratic structures and individual liberty. Such an evaluation of the more questionable aspects of crime and the control thereof seems vital in considering the totality of the inequalities that drive the system of justice in capitalist societies. For instance, how do inequalities in punishment square with larger class divisions in a society? How do new control technologies that range from biometrics to electronic devices reframe our understanding of punishment and secu- rity? Such questions will be of paramount importance to future sociological analysis of crime and security. The Land of Too Much: American Abundance and the Paradox of Poverty, by Monica Prasad. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012. 327 pp. $39.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780674066526. M ARION F OURCADE University of California, Berkeley fourcade@berkeley.edu Readers who open this justly acclaimed book are not quite prepared for what they are going to find. As its brilliant title inti- mates, though, The Land of Too Much is more than just a fine scholarly achievement. It is a lively and deeply entertaining tour de force that seduces by its style as much as by its substance. This is too rare a feat in the world of modern sociology to be left unno- ticed. The introduction draws the reader in Contemporary Sociology 44, 3 Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA BERKELEY LIB on June 14, 2015