By Arthur MacDonald.

The narrative in Volume 1 asks many pointed questions: What does it mean to be “abnormal”? Who decides? And how have these judgments shaped modern science, education, and criminal justice?

First published in 1893, Arthur MacDonald’s Abnormal Man is one of the earliest American attempts to systematically study human difference through the emerging tools of psychology, anthropology, and criminology. Drawing on international research—from European criminal anthropology to American child-study movements—MacDonald sought to classify the physical, mental, and moral traits considered “aberrant” in his era. His work reflects the hopes and anxieties of a society confronting rapid industrialization, immigration, social change, and new scientific approaches to crime and mental health.

To the modern reader, Abnormal Man reveals both the ambition and the pitfalls of nineteenth-century science. Its pages contain pioneering observations about child development, deviance, and social responsibility, alongside early theories—now discredited—about heredity, physiognomy, and race. What emerges is a vivid and sometimes unsettling portrait of a culture striving to understand human variation without the benefit of modern psychology or ethical safeguards.

The Read-Me.org edition Volume 1 presents Abnormal Man as both a historical artifact and a gateway to critical reflection. It illustrates how scientific thought evolves, how cultural bias can shape research, and how early debates about abnormality laid the groundwork for contemporary approaches to mental health, special education, criminology, and social policy. To make such work, much of it controversial then as it is today, minimally believable, requires extensive documentation. The voluminous Bibliography of Abnormal Man reproduced here in Volume 2, contains all that Macdnald referred to within his detailed exposition. To some, his arguments may seem unsupported, or lacking in evidence. But he left no stone untuned as this amazing bibliographical documentation of all relative contemporary research

A foundational text at the crossroads of science and society, Abnormal Man invites readers to explore the origins of modern debates about deviance, diversity, and the boundaries of the “normal.”

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. 240p.

By Florence Yosne. National Criminal Justice Educational Development Project Portland State University And Center Of Criminal Justice Arizona State University.

From the Introduction: This bibliography is the result of a cooperative effort between Portland State University and Arizona State University. It was developed in response to a need for a comprehensive and detailed multi-disciplinary compilation of available books and government documents that relate to the emerging field of Criminal Justice. Professional journals and magazine sources were not included due to person power constraints and the recognition that many of the more significant articles and statements relating to Criminal Justice can be found contained in recently-published books.

The bibliography is broken down into four general substantive areas: (1) criminal justice; (2) law enforcement; (3) corrections;  and (4) courts. The majority of the works are included under the heading "Criminal Justice." In this area, titles are included from such diverse fields as anthropology, economics, education, history, law, political science, psychology, the physical sciences, public administration, and sociology. The other three areas--"Law, Enforcement, " "Corrections, " and "Courts"--while more specific in nature, also reflect the use of information and research from many related and diverse sources.

Clearly, the specific subjects appearing within these four broad rubrics are varied and numerous. In order to facilitate the use of this bibliography, the four broad areas were further broken down into specific subjects such as "civil liberties, " "victimless crimes, " etc., with bibliography entries relating to those topics being identified. The detailed classification of bibliography entries appears at the end of this "Introduction."

It will be readily apparent to the user that the bibliography is multi-disciplinary in nature. This reflects the editor's view that Criminal Justice is a multi-disciplinary, problem-oriented field of scholarship, research, and teaching, embracing those aspects of the social, behavioral, natural, and medical sciences relating to understanding crime and social deviance and entailing a critical examination of the system which has evolved for the handling of attendant problems. The selection of authors, titles, and subjects reflects the need of Criminal Justice, as an emerging field of study, to be sensitive to the ideas and philosophies of a wide range of scholar sand researchers. A bibliography with a narrow focus is of organization and functioning of an entire society.

The sources for the bibliography were legion, and they also reflect the multi-disciplinary approach. Bibliographies from the faculty at Portland State University, Florida Slate University, Michigan State University, San Jose State University, and the University of California at Berkeley, in addition to the Index of Books in Print, catalogs from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, lists from publishers, and reviews from the New York Review of Books, Psychology Today, and the Atlantic Monthly, provided the editor with the reference material necessary for so vast an undertaking.

 MEMBERS NATIONAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATIONAL CONSORTIUM. 1975. 418p.

By Luke Kelly

This annotated bibliography includes research and evidence on militarized approaches to combating serious and organized crime (SOC) in various contexts. Militarised approaches involve using military forces or methods to deter and disrupt SOC groups. These approaches have been employed in states facing high levels of violence, fragile and conflict-affected contexts, post-conflict settings, and against threats like piracy and wildlife crime. The research finds that the evidence on the effectiveness of militarised approaches is largely negative. While there are a range of militarised approaches, applied in a variety of contexts, most papers nevertheless agree that military force, or military techniques, can only address one facet of SOC at best, and need to be linked with a range of other measures such as policing, rule of law interventions and economic interventions, to effectively combat SOC. As well as drawing resources away from these other measures, militarised approaches have also been found to have a number of direct and indirect negative effects, such as human rights abuses, increases in violence, and undermining the rule of law.

Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham, 2023. 44p.SOC ACE Evidence Review Paper 4.