This book is essential reading for those seeking a richer social scientific understanding of contemporary rural life. It is destined to stimulate much thoughtful debate and it is a useful tool for those seeking to challenge hurtful stereotypes of rural people and the communities in which they live.

Walter S. DeKeseredy, West Virginia University

At times, it seems that the image of ‘rural’ is a giant contradiction—it is either a safe, idyllic landscape of highly cohesive communities, or a dark place of dangerous and violent people who prey on outsides with a repertoire of sadistically inspired instruments of pain and death. Sometime those images are reinforced by social scientists who poorly frame their conceptual frameworks and shortcut their research by avoiding the complexities and nuances of the real ‘rural’. This is why Fulkerson and Thomas’ book is a great service to both the scholarly and journalistic communities. It debunks both the rural idyll and the rural-as-evil, and offers alternatives that are more befitting of the rural realities of America today.

Joseph F. Donnermeyer, editor of "The Routledge International Handbook of Rural Criminology"