Albion's Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England
In the popular imagination, informed as it is by Hogarth, Swift, Defoe and Fielding, the eighteenth-century underworld is a place of bawdy knockabout, rife with colourful eccentrics. But the artistic portrayals we have only hint at the dark reality. In this new edition of a classic collection of essays, renowned social historians from Britain and America examine the gangs of criminals who tore apart English society, while a criminal law of unexampled savagery struggled to maintain stability.
Douglas Hay deals with the legal system that maintained the propertied classes, and in another essay shows it in brutal action against poachers; John G. Rule and Cal Winslow tell of smugglers and wreckers, showing how these activities formed a natural part of the life of traditional communities. Together with Peter Linebaugh's piece on the riots against the surgeons at Tyburn, and E. P. Thompson's illuminating work on anonymous threatening letters, these essays form a powerful contribution to the study of social tensions at a transformative and vibrant stage in English history.
This new edition includes a new introduction by Winslow, Hay and Linebaugh, reflecting on the turning point in the social history of crime that the book represents.
Paperback, 388 pages
ISBN: 9781844677160
October 2011
$26.95 / £16.99 / $33.50CAN
Other Editions
Ebook, 352 pages
ISBN: 9781844678129
September 2011
$22.99 / $33.50CAN
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Reviews
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“Close, meticulous scholarship, imagination, a joyous use of literary and ‘qualitative’ evidence … and the driving force of commitment make it memorable.”
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“Immensely advances our understanding both of Hanoverian England and of the relationship between law and society in general.”
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“Provocative, full of insights into neglected phases of eighteenth-century social history, and at times profound.”
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“Erudite … and elegantly pungent.”
Blog
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A Nation of Shopkeepers
I thought Napoleon said it. But no, it's in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776), book IV, section vii, part 3 (about half way through). Here's what he says:
To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.
We might want to add news-mongers, phone hackers, cops on the take, MPs slurping up the lard at the trough, all the bankers and the other high net worth individuals.
But what was Adam Smith on about? -
John G Rule: 1944-2011
The social historian of life and labour in Victorian and Georgian Britain John G Rule has died at age 67. Rule was part of a group of young historians who worked under the famous historian E.P. Thompson at the University of Warwick in the 1960s. Among Rule's many prestigious academic achievements is his remarkable chapter on "Wrecking and Coastal Plunder" in Albion's Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England. His obituary in the Guardian describes his contribution to this collection as follows:
John's contribution to the seminal collection Albion's Fatal Tree (1975) restored to history those Cornish coastal communities which, during the 18th century, accepted the flotsam and jetsam of the sea as a natural bounty to which no laws of property attached; and he destroyed the romantic myth of the Cornish wreckers with their false lights.
Discussions
Begin a discussionOther books by Douglas Hay, Peter Linebaugh, John G. Rule, E. P. Thompson, and Cal Winslow
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The London Hanged
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The Many-Headed Hydra
by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker -
Rebel Rank and File
Edited by Aaron Brenner, Robert Brenner, et al.