Synopses & Reviews
Since the 1970s, Americans have witnessed a pyrrhic war on crime, with sobering numbers at once chilling and cautionary. Our imprisoned population has increased five-fold, with a commensurate spike in fiscal costs that many now see as unsupportable into the future. As American society confronts a multitude of new challenges ranging from terrorism to the disappearance of middle-class jobs to global warming, the war on crime may be up for reconsideration for the first time in a generation or more. Relatively low crime rates indicate that the public mood may be swinging toward declaring victory and moving on.
However, to declare that the war is over is dangerous and inaccurate, and After the War on Crime reveals that the impact of this war reaches far beyond statistics; simply moving on is impossible. The war has been most devastating to those affected by increased rates and longer terms of incarceration, but its reach has also reshaped a sweeping range of social institutions, including law enforcement, politics, schooling, healthcare, and social welfare. The war has also profoundly altered conceptions of race and community.
It is time to consider the tasks reconstruction must tackle. To do so requires first a critical assessment of how this war has remade our society, and then creative thinking about how government, foundations, communities, and activists should respond. After the War on Crime accelerates this reassessment with original essays by a diverse, interdisciplinary group of scholars as well as policy professionals and community activists. The volume's immediate goal is to spark a fresh conversation about the war on crime and its consequences; its long-term aspiration is to develop a clear understanding of how we got here and of where we should go.
Review
This brave book challenges us, urgently, to rethink crime and punishment for the 21st century. It is not by accident that the U.S. became the world's largest incarcerator in just thirty-five years. After the War on Crime exposes how structural inequalities based on race and class and written into our laws, institutions and everyday practices have blackened our jails and prisons and reproduced segregated communities inside and out.-Susan Tucker,Director, The After Prison Initiative, Open Society Institute
Review
"This thought-provoking book contains 14 essays that explore the far-reaching collateral damages and socioeconomic consequences of tough-on-crime policies."
-Choice,
Review
“A rattlingly good read....[S]trongly recommend[ed]...in any teaching context where students of history are being asked to reflect philosophically upon the nature of their subject.”
-American Historical Review,
Review
“The Historians' Paradox can be read with profit by practitioners and graduate students because it is more insightful, better balanced, and more concise then most recent books on the nature of the historical enterprise.”
-The Journal of American History,
Review
“Hoffer expands the theory of history beyond its usual narrow confines. A readable and instructive book on a complex topic.”
-Choice,
Review
“[C]onsistently amusing and edifying throughout. [Hoffer] demonstrates an extraordinary mastery of a wide variety of materials. Hes a mature historian at peak form.”
-Peter Onuf,author of The Mind of Thomas Jefferson
Review
“Hoffer has a knack for using contemporary situations that will eventually be topics for historical writing.”
-Claire Potter,Wesleyan University
Synopsis
How do we know what happened in the past? We cannot go back, and no amount of historical data can enable us to understand with absolute certainty what life was like “then.” It is easy to demolish the very idea of historical knowing, but it is impossible to demolish the importance of historical knowing. In an age of cable television pundits and anonymous bloggers dueling over history, the value of owning history increases at the same time as our confidence in history as a way of knowing crumbles. Historical knowledge thus presents a paradox — the more it is required, the less reliable it has become. To reconcile this paradox — that history is impossible but necessary — Peter Charles Hoffer proposes a practical, workable philosophy of history for our times, one that is robust and realistic, and that speaks to anyone who reads, writes and teaches history.
Covering a sweeping range of philosophies (from ancient history to game theory), methodological approaches to writing history, and the advantages and disadvantages of different strategies of argument, Hoffer constructs a philosophy of history that is reasonable, free of fallacy, and supported by appropriate evidence that is itself tenable.
About the Author
Peter Charles Hoffer is Distinguished Research Professor of History at the University of Georgia. He has authored and co-authored more than twenty books, including
Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, and Fraud in American History from Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis and Goodwin and
The Supreme Court: An Essential History.
Jonathan Simon is Professor of Law at Boalt Hall and author of Governing through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear.