Steven E. Barkan is Professor of Sociology at the University of Maine. He is the author of several other textbooks: (1) Discovering Sociology: An Introduction Using MicroCase Explorit, 3e (Wadsworth); (2) Criminology: A Sociological Understanding, 5e (Prentice Hall); (3) Law and Society: An Introduction (Prentice Hall); (4) Collective Violence, 2e (with Lynne Snowden; Sloan Publishing); and (5) Fundamentals of Criminal Justice, 2e (with George Bryjak; Jones and Bartlett). He has also authored more than 30 journal articles and book chapters in sources 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. Barkan is past president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems and was recently elected to the council of Alpha Kappa Delta, the international sociology honor society. He also recently finished his seventeenth and final year (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 UMaine. A native of Philadelphia, PA, Barkan has lived in Maine for the past thirty-two years. He received his Ph.D.in Sociology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his B.A. in Sociology from Trinity College (Hartford, CT), 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.