Geography of Trafficking: From Drug Smuggling to Modern-Day Slavery. By Fred M. Shelley and Reagan Metz. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2017. 361 pages. Acid-free $89 (ISBN 978-1-4408-3822-4). E-book available (978-1-4408-3823-1), call for pricing.

In keeping with its title, Shelley and Metz’s Geography of Trafficking provides an introduction to trafficking through the lens of place by focusing on how geographical features, from natural landscapes to imposed borders, contribute to trafficking.

The book features five main sections. The first covers the process of trafficking, from the origins of trafficked people and goods to their distribution. In the second and third sections, the authors explore different types of human and commodity trafficking. For each type, they provide a definition, impacts, contributing factors, and deterrence efforts. Although the authors include some historical information, their focus is on the present.

The fourth section consists of forty-eight profiles of individual countries or groups of countries. Each profile lists basic characteristics of the country (location, size, population, landscape, history, government) and how they affect trafficking there, the types of trafficking prevalent in that country, and any anti-trafficking laws and efforts in the country. The concluding fifth section provides the full text of documents related to trafficking.

Throughout the book, the authors emphasize the connection between geography and trafficking. For example, they describe how trafficking is more likely when the demand for an item is located far from the item’s source (77). Similarly, they note that anti-trafficking laws can be difficult to enforce in places where borders cross “rugged and isolated terrain” (99). The authors also stress the connections between different types of trafficking. For example, they describe how trafficked children may be forced to mine gems that are in turn trafficked (78).

Among similar titles, this book appears to be nearly unique in its combination of human and commodity trafficking, and certainly unique in its use of geography as the method of study. In Illicit Trafficking: A Reference Handbook (ABC-CLIO, 2005), Robert J. Kelly, Jess Maghan, and Joseph Serio examine both human and commodity trafficking, but do so from the perspective of criminal justice and organized crime. In addition, the work borders on being out of date. The Routledge Handbook of Human Trafficking, by Ryszard Piotrowicz, Conny Rijken, and Baerbel Heide Uhl (Routledge, 2017), and Human Trafficking: A Reference Handbook, by Alexis A. Aronowitz (ABC-CLIO, 2017), both focus solely on human trafficking.

The book’s language is extremely accessible and assumes no background knowledge of either geography or trafficking. In addition, most citations reference news sources such as National Public Radio and the Guardian. Because of this, the book seems most appropriate for a public library, high school, or early undergraduate audience. While the inclusion of both human and commodity trafficking makes a strong point in the book’s favor, the fact that the majority of citations point to news articles makes the book seem lacking. This reviewer would hesitate to rely on the book as the sole trafficking-related title in an academic reference collection; it would probably function better as a companion to a work with more thorough research.—Bethany Spieth, Instruction and Access Services Librarian, Ohio Northern University, Ada, Ohio