Book excerpt: Despite the enormous economic, physical and social impacts of crimes committed by states and corporations, they are still relatively under-researched within contemporary social science--partly because of the perpetrator's ability to evade critical scrutiny. The contributions in this book map out the parameters of a political economy of researching the powerful, marking out the major problems encountered, and identifying ways in which these problems might be overcome or circumnavigated. To this end, the book brings together original essays which reflect upon researching the powerful in Britain, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Spain, Turkey and the United States. Together these chapters advance our understandings of what corporate and state power is, how this power operates, and how it might be more effectively resisted.