If you were a criminal, what would you choose – a life sentence in prison, the death sentence, or to be surgically blinded?
Blind Justice in Eugene Sue’s “The Mysteries of Paris” (1842–3)
“Lenin Lives!” (2017) by Philip Cunliffe
Philip Cunliffe has written a fascinating book which gives an account of how history might have turned out had the goals of early twentieth-century socialists been realised.
Outlaws vs. Vampires
On the same night that Mary Shelley conceived the idea for Frankenstein, her friend, Dr John Polidori, conjured another frightening creature – the vampire. Yet his malevolent vampire was no match for some Italian bandits, it seems.
Dimas and Gestas: Bandits Crucified with Christ
The two men crucified alongside Jesus were not just petty thieves but dangerous bandits and possible revolutionaries.
The Virgin and the Outlaw
In the earliest medieval poems, Robin Hood is devoted to the Virgin Mary. While this may seem odd, many thieves in medieval Europe had an attachment to her.
A Hymn of Dissent: Inscriptions from the Dungeons of Richmond Castle
In WW1, Conscientious Objectors under sentence of death left their mark in their cells detailing their thoughts and prayers before in what they imagined were their final hours.
An English Republican’s View of Crime and its Causes
G. W. M. Reynolds, the “vicious republican” of the Victorian era, attributed the cause of all crime to the the existence of the royal family and the political establishment.
The Mysteries of New York
In the Victorian era, New York was a large industrial city with ‘dark Satanic mills’ in which the poor and the rich lived “cheek by jowl”; paupers lived a hand-to-mouth existence and for many, a life of crime as part of an organised criminal gang.
Mexican Cartels
Carlos Rodriguez gives a brief history and analysis of Mexican cartels from the 1980s onwards.
The Underclass of 19th-Century New York City: The Work of Jacob A. Riis (1849-1914)
Stephen Basdeo takes a look at the life of one of New York’s pioneering social reformers, Jacob A. Riis.
