知名人类学家Jean 与 John L. Comaroff 在这本书中提出一个在现在这个时代，令人吃惊却绝对有说服力的论点，那就是我们不是透过艺术、政治、科学了解自己，而是透过罪行。两位作者调查了涵盖范围广阔的罪行与治安，从顺手牵羊到数十亿美元的大型金融机构诈骗甚至到战争毁损，将读者带进后现代时期的混沌中。综观近期资本、国家与治理三者已成为一个缺一不可的三角，这让罪行与治安串通在一起，两位作者让我们认真思考主权、公民关系、阶级、种族、法律与政治经济的意义。
           
两位作者用他们对南非的了解，尤其是为了要从多年的暴力及压迫下在法治的基础上建立民主所遇到的困境。他们探索人们为了保护家园在治安方面无所不用其极，有神奇的超自然还有极端的方式。从他们做的研究与调查来看，他们用全球的犯罪人类学证明犯罪行为构成了当代生活且控制了政治、道德恐慌和人民。
           
结果非常恼人，但我们有必要知道这个世代的真正面貌，这个结果会让我们自问，人类看待自己、看待道德的方式，也让我们看到要如何以地球村的面貌迎向未来。
 
好评
William Julius Wilson, author of The Truly Disadvantaged
“The Truth about Crime is replete with original insights. Reflecting on the disproportionate relationship between fear and actual danger in a number of major countries, Jean and John Comaroff explain why criminality, although far from matching many other potential sources of public peril, elicits much more civic outrage. We learn how changes in the meaning of criminality and the nature of crime-and-policing are associated with the recent shift in the relationship between capital, governance, and the state. We also learn how these developments in both the United States and the Republic of South Africa have resulted in steps taken to discipline or control certain groups defined or viewed as threatening. This is a compelling book, a must-read for scholars and laypersons alike.”
 
Peter Geschiere, author of Witchcraft, Intimacy, and Trust
“The Comaroffs’ constant articulation of sparkling ethnographic vignettes, rich statistical data, and highly imaginative insights makes for a truly effervescent argumentation, creative and, at the same time, thoroughly documented. With this combination they offer a powerful book that newly addresses a theme that is becoming central all over the world: our increasing obsession with (in)security.”
 
关于作者
Jean Comaroff 是哈佛大学非洲与非裔美人研究教授也是怀海德与欧本海默学会成员。她写过很多书也和其他作者合作出版过许多作品。
 
John L. Comaroff是芝加哥大学人类学系的Harold W. Swift 特别贡献教授，也是美国律师基金会的研究教授。他和Jean Comaroff 共同撰写和编辑的许多著作，包括Of Revelation and Revolution1、2册、Ethnography and the Historical Imagination, Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism以及 Law and Disorder in the Postcolony。