Murders and Madness: Medicine, Law, and Society in the Fin de Siècle (Oxford Historical Monographs) - Brossura

Harris, Ruth

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0198202598 ISBN 13: 9780198202592

Casa editrice: Oxford University Press, USA, 1991

Riassunto

This is an interdisciplinary study of the debate on crime and madness in France between 1880 and 1914. Harris argues that the traditional bases of the French penal system were undermined at the time by psychiatric theories of human behavior and new sociological interpretations of crime, which challenged legal concepts of free will and moral responsibility. The book also examines the evolution of a new kind of knowledge, and shows how the politique criminelle envisaged by specialists was the result of the interaction among the bureaucratic culture of the magistrates, the clinical and scientific world of the psychiatrists, and the background of the defendants.

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Recensione:

`a useful, compendious, suggestive, often sensitive book' Times Literary Supplement

`an intelligent and well-researched study' British Journal of Criminology

`Harris has written a useful, compendious, suggestive, often sensitive book.' Times Literary Supplement

'the book's painstaking analysis of dozens of cases from the Paris courts over the period 1880 to 1910 gives it an authoritative tone that will not easily be challenged' Medical History

'a meticulously researched study of medico-legal debates in nineteenth-century France' History Workshop Journal

Product Description:

"Murders and Madness" examines the French debate over crime and madness. The author argues that psychiatric theories of human behaviour and new sociological interpretations of crime combined to undermine the traditional foundations of the penal system and helped to shape the new science of criminology. As a result, traditional notions of free will and moral responsibility were eroded as new and often draconian strategies evolved from managerial practices, developed mainly by medical men. This study attempts to break down the conventional boundaries between intellectual and social history by linking the often esoteric formulations of the professionals to the defendants' own mental anguish and emotional despair. The author demonstrates how the debate over crime and madness repeatedly touched on some of the most wide-spread anxieties of an era which focused on the politics of gender and class. Through a series of case studies, she looks specifically at discussions of feminine hysteria and women's sexuality, male alcoholism and racial degeneration, crimes of passion, crowd violence and revolutionary politics.

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• Editore: Oxford University Press, USA
• Data di pubblicazione: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0198202598
• ISBN 13: 9780198202592
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 384