Moving beyond his 1989 book, Control: Sociology's Central Notion, Jack Gibbs develops in this new book a comprehensive theory of control in all its biological, technological, and human dimensions. His treatment goes beyond conventional ideas about social control to show why self-control and proximate control are essential to understanding human interaction. He also argues that thinking of control in terms of the counteraction of deviance is insufficient.

Tests of Gibbs's control theory, based on data from sixty-six countries, add credence to his claim that control could be the central nation for sociology and perhaps for other social sciences.