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This is one of the most ambitious works of recent days upon the subject of criminology. As one begins to read it he is at once introduced
into the usual discussions which one finds in works dealing with the same subject, such as the relation of crime to physical environment, the economic factors that are involved, the influence of civilization, the organic basis of criminality, the mental characteristics of criminals, etc., and in many of these chapters the psychiatrist is inclined to feel some impatience with the author, who is still sticking to classifications and descriptions which have long since become static and largely meaningless. As one progresses, however, in the reading sympathy with the author and his effort distinctly increases. One realizes that the book is really a monumental undertaking and that its five hundred closely written pages contain an enormous amount of information about all aspects of the subject, which are commented upon in an interesting and stimulating way by the author, whose wide reading and broad grasp of the material has rendered it possible for him to present it in a useful way. This sympathy decidedly increases when the author begins to discuss the more specifically sociological and legal aspects of his problem. Here he is much more at home than in the more distinctly scientific matters, and one gets the feeling that he is much more dynamic in his attitude towards the subjects treated with reference to these matters about which he is more conversant. His sympathies are strongly with the scientific attack upon the problem and his discussion, for example, of what he conceives would be the advantages of a public defender revolves almost wholly about the indirect advantages which would bring to bear slowly but surely a more scientific attitude towards the problem of the criminal. Even so, however, one looks in vain for any real broad concept of what crime really is, what the word really means, for a comprehensive understanding of th