First, a warning: this book isn't really for general audiences. It's very dense, with lots of statistics, 90 pages of notes and 60 or so of references, and the author assumes the reader knows a fair amount of American history. He talks about things like Nat Turner's rebellion and the Mollie Maguires and the Reconstruction without bothering to explain what those things are.

But if you already know your history and you're willing to wade through this nearly 700-page tome, I think you'll find it worth your while. Roth did an in-depth study of homicide in America from colonial times to the present day, and his book covers every kind of murder except the murders of children and murders committed by children. (I think he plans to write another book about those.) Roth's theory is that the homicide rate in America is tied, not to the usual suspects like drugs and poverty and racial issues and the availability of weapons, but to confidence in government. When citizens trust their government, the homicide rate drops. When they lose faith in the government, the homicide rate rises. He claims this is the only trend that matches the homicide rate exactly. To determine people's confidence in government in the days before things like the Gallup poll, Roth uses the interesting method of tabulating how many new counties are named after national heroes.

Whether or not I agree with Roth's conclusions, I find his writing and his arguments fascinating, and I was impressed by the sheer volume of research he had to have done to create this book. I would recommend this to serious American history buffs, particularly those interested in crime history. ( )