THE TRUTH ABOUT CRIME, sovereignty, knowledge, social order

347pp., paperback, First SA Edition, Johannesburg, 2017

First published in the USA in 2016.

"'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." William Julius Wilson, author of "The Truly Disadvantaged"

"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." Peter Geschiere, author of "Witchcraft, Intimacy, and Trust"

Jean Comaroff is the Alfred North Whitehead Professor of African and African American Studies and of Anthropology and an Oppenheimer Fellow in African Studies at Harvard University.
John L. Comaroff is the Harold W. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago and a Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation. Together they have co-authored and co-edited numerous books, including "Of Revelation and Revolution", volumes 1 and 2, "Ethnography and the Historical Imagination", and "Law and Disorder in the Postcolony".