Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2018 -

This two-volume set reveals prevalent trends in the social and behavioral science literature produced by scholars in the global north. Presented alphabetically by legal category of sexual violence--including incest, sexual harassment, stalking, and statutory rape-- the essays (and the accompanying primary sources) provide an important first reference point on the legal categories that circulate primarily in US law. For each entry the editor briefly notes global dimensions of the particular category of sexual violence. The cultural specificity of the compilation is necessary to present a cohesive picture of sexual violence in the US. Sexual violence varies significantly cross-culturally in law, experience, and social acceptance, and the compilation at hand provides very preliminary understandings of this variance. The entry on wartime rape departs from the US focus of the set and details the international legal context in which this category of sexual violence has developed. The 40 primary documents that follow the alphabetical entries are arranged chronologically (1981-2017) and allow for a comparison of history-making testimony or law with the conceptual developments outlined in the alphabetical entries. The documents are drawn from US court findings and court testimony, committee hearings, seminal US laws on sexual violence, declarations from US women's rights advocacy groups and United Nations testimony, and reports on wartime sexual violence and sex trafficking. Clearly written and well organized, this valuable resource provides a window on the development of core concepts of sexual violence and the role this social problem plays in US society.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates, researchers and faculty, professionals, general readers.