Synopsis
The history of crime is becoming an increasinglhy popular area of social history and has alrady produced some notable contributions in the way of books and articles ranging from the medieval period to modern America. The pioneering book in this particular time period was Joel Samaha's Law and Order in Historical Perspective: The Case of Elizabethan Essex (New York, 1972). More recently a collection of essays, Albion's Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England, with contributions by Douglas Hay, Peter Linebaugh, E. P. Thompson, John G. Rule, and Cal Winslow (Londong, 1975) has appeared. The present collection of essays will be of interest not only to those who study seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English history, but to people working in social and legal history in general. The authors used a variety of approaches to their subject. Traditional legal history essays are mixed with more quantitative ones. The excellent articles fall within both the traditional and the newer approaches, showing, at least, that there is not an exclusive methodology for the study of crime.