| Crime and the Nation: Prison and Popular Fiction in Philadelphia. 1786-1800 Contributor(s): Okun, Peter (Author) |
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ISBN: 0415933862 ISBN-13: 9780415933865 Publisher: Routledge OUR PRICE: $152.00 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: July 2002 Annotation: "Crime and the Nation" explores the correlation between fiction writing and national identity in the late eighteenth century when these two enterprises went hand in hand. It also explores the nature of crime as part of America's national identity, and the origins of the nation's unique and enduring love affair with crime and crime fiction. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | American - General - History | United States - General - Social Science | Criminology |
| Dewey: 813.209 |
| LCCN: 2002020838 |
| Series: Studies in American Popular History and Culture |
| Physical Information: 0.68" H x 6.8" W x 8.7" (0.97 lbs) 208 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 18th Century - Cultural Region - Mid-Atlantic - Geographic Orientation - Pennsylvania - Locality - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Crime and the Nation explores the correlation between fiction writing and national identity in the late eighteenth century when these two enterprises went hand in hand. The 1780s and '90s witnessed a spirited public debate on crime and punishment that produced a new kind of fiction and a new kind of prison. The world's first penitentiary-style prison opened at Philadelphia in 1790. At the same time jurists, reformers and fiction writers found new uses for the criminal. Suddenly, he was fascinating, he was edifying to the community, he was worth displaying and reforming. In a young nation whose very origins were perceived as criminal, yet clearly necessary and ultimately redeemable, crime emerged as an essential-and controversial-component of national identity. Crime and the Nation explores the nature of that identity, and the origins of America's unique and enduring love affair with crime and crime fiction. |