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About the Author

Steven E. Barkan

Steven E. Barkan is a former president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems and professor of sociology at the University of Maine. He is the author of another Unnamed Publisher text, Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World, which won a Textbook Excellence Award from the Text and Academic Authors Association. He is also the author of several other textbooks: (1) Criminology: A Sociological Understanding, fifth edition (Prentice Hall); (2) Fundamentals of Criminal Justice, second edition (with George Bryjak; Jones and Bartlett); (3) Collective Violence, second edition (with Lynne Snowden; Sloan Publishing); (4) Discovering Sociology: An Introduction Using MicroCase ExplorIt, third edition (Wadsworth); and (5) Law and Society: An Introduction (Prentice Hall). He has also authored more than thirty journal articles and book chapters in venues such as the American Sociological Review; Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion; Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency; Justice Quarterly; Mobilization; Review of Religious Research; Social Forces; Social Problems; Social Science Quarterly; and Sociological Forum.

Professor Barkan also serves as a regional representative on the council of Alpha Kappa Delta, the international sociology honor society, and spent seventeen years (fortunately, not all consecutive) as chair of his department. He has received an Outstanding Faculty Award from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Maine. A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Professor Barkan has lived in Maine for the past thirty-three years. He received his PhD in sociology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his BA in sociology from Trinity College (Hartford, Connecticut), where he began to learn how to think like a sociologist and also to appreciate the value of a sociological perspective for understanding and changing society. He sincerely hopes that instructors and students enjoy reading this book in the format of their choice and welcomes their comments at .