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Category Archives: Reviews

The Ten Best History Books about Crime and Punishment

Just in time for the gift-giving season, here is my “Ten Best History Books about Crime and Punishment.” I want to thank everyone who submitted suggestions for the list: I read some of the books already, and I look forward to reading those I haven’t. Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at […]

EAC Reviews: Murder and Mayhem in Essex County by Robert Wilhelm

Murder and Mayhem in Essex County by Robert Wilhelm (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2011), 128 pp. Robert Wilhelm has earned a reputation for writing compelling accounts of 19th-century murders on his blog, Murder by Gaslight. He has more recently taken on a new project, The National Night Stick, which chronicles the oddities and outrageous […]

What Are Your Favorite History Books About Crime and Punishment?

I am putting together a list of the top ten history books about crime and punishment, and I would like you to participate! Nominations are open to any book that deals with crime history, regardless of place (in other words, it does not have to be limited to American crime history). Books should be historical […]

EAC Reviews: American Homicide by Randolph Roth

American Homicide by Randolph Roth (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009), 655 pp. In American Homicide, Randolph Roth attempts to use the massive amount of historical data that he and his colleagues have assembled for the Historical Violence Database to explain patterns in the murder rate over broad historical time periods. […]

EAC Reviews: Counterfeiting in the Early United States

A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States by Stephen Mihm (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 457 pp. Counterfeiting was widespread during the early history of the United States. Some estimates from the time claimed that between ten and fifty percent of the circulating currency was counterfeit. Such […]