Review of Martin J. Wiener, Reconstructing the Criminal (1990); and William B. Thesing, ed., Executions and the British Experience from the 17th to the 20th Century (1990)

Abstract

Finds Wiener’s study of criminals in the nineteenth century more valuable than Thesing’s collection of essays. The former offers a concise, detailed analysis of the impact of crime and punishment on Victorian society as a whole. While some of the essays in Thesing’s volume are relevant to nineteenth-century studies, they offer little new information or insight.