The Encyclopedia of Domestic Violence and Abuse from ABC-CLIO is a traditional two-volume set with twin aims of informing on and promoting awareness of a pervasive problem still too often relegated to niche status. Editor Laura L. Finley, assistant professor of sociology and criminology at Barry University, has culled the work of sixty academics who have authored over 170 entries each with byline and bibliography of suggested further reading resources.

The set’s organizational structure begins with three special tools, which include comprehensive alphabetical and subject-based lists of entries followed by an extensive timeline of significant events related to domestic violence ranging from the first Roman marriage laws codifying women’s obeisance to their husbands in 753 BC to the recent determination in 2011 by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the US Supreme Court erred in declaring there is no entitlement to restraining order enforcement. Finley also pens the introductory essay in which she places domestic violence within the larger struggle for international human rights and constructs her own narrative timeline which catalogs recent legislative successes on various national and world playing fields while also attempting to identify where further work remains to be done.

The subjects covered reflect the international scope of the work right out of the gate with an entry on “Acid Throwing,” a prevalent practice in several south-central Asian nations in which predominantly men throw or pour acid on women and children as a means of nonlethal intimidation. This entry also highlights a common theme of domestic abuse in nearly all guises in that incidences routinely go underreported and therefore accurate statistics are often difficult to accumulate. In addition to entries on the various methods of abuse employed around the globe, subjects are generally clustered around biography (categories of victims and abusers as well as key individuals and organizations involved in the struggle against domestic violence), psychology (understanding and explaining abuse, effects, and correlates of abuse) and history (legislation, the courts, and activism). And while most entries highlight concepts and examples which directly correlate with domestic violence, there are several entries which exist to question their relationship with the topic such as Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams’ “Music and Domestic Abuse” entry in which he states, “The intersection of domestic abuse/violence and music is an area almost entirely without any credible research” (335).

With the bulk of the subject entries residing in volume one (A through R) and only 127 of almost 500 pages in volume two devoted to their remainder (S through W), a majority of the second volume is comprised of reprints of all front matter from volume one (finding tools and introduction) as well as two major appendixes, glossary of terms, more recommended resource lists, and short author biographies. Appendix A contains the full text of four primary documents: “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women,” “Report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights re: Jessica Lenahan (Gonzales) et al. v. United States,” “Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000,” and the “Violence Against Women Act” (actually a sub-section of the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act). Appendix B consists of a list of state, national, and international organizations related to domestic abuse along with contact information. Given how easily discoverable the documents in Appendix A are via the UN and US GPO websites and how compiled contact lists such as those found in Appendix B are often out of date before they are even printed, the editor and publisher would seem to have missed an excellent opportunity to produce a sleeker one-volume title to both strengthen its utility and lower its cost. Still, Finley’s work has few directly comparable titles, the closest being editor Nicky Ali Jackson’s Encyclopedia of Domestic Violence (Routledge, 2007). Academic libraries specializing in sociology and criminology collections and others which still maintain comprehensive print-based reference collections are likeliest to find this title useful.