| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 88.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 163 words from this article are provided below; about 325 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 88.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Cop Knowledge: Police Power and Cultural Narrative in Twentieth-Century America. By Christopher P. Wilson. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. xii, 281 pp. Cloth, $42.00, ISBN 0-226-90132-7. Paper, $16.00, ISBN 0-226-90133-5.)

In Cop Knowledge, Christopher P. Wilson takes on the job of linking cultural theory to the history of policing in the twentieth-century United States. A professor of English and American studies, Wilson has reached across academic disciplines to understand how postindustrial Americans have understood the role of police in society, how police articulate professionalism and ethics, and how stories about policing create a cultural apparatus that shapes judicial outcomes. These stories, which constitute "cop knowledge," circulate among the cultural producers, subjects, and audiences Wilson examines: policy makers, beat cops, journalists and other mass culture producers, and social scientists. Stories police tell about themselves, he argues, "play off of and feed back from media formations, becom[ing] not separate from the everyday routines of police work, but actually encoded in them." . . .

There are about 325 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.