The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century

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Summary: Death by hanging was a weapon of the privileged ruling class
Review: The London Hanged: Crime And Civil Society In The Eighteenth Century by Peter Linebaugh (Assistant Professor of History, University of Toledo) is a fascinating and informative study of eighteenth century London, in which hanging was much more than capital punishment for criminal transgressors. Death by hanging was also a weapon the privileged ruling class utilized in order to strip the indigent populace into accepting the outlawing of customary rights and newly emerging forms of private property. The new property laws were so stringent that nearly all working-class men and women had reason to fear the hangman. The lessons drawn from this history bear special relevance in today's world where capital punishment is a very hotly debated issue. The London Hanged is highly recommended reader for both academia and the non-specialist general reader with an interest in European history.