Synopses & Reviews
View the
Table of Contents. Read the
Introduction.
"This work will take its place among the growing corpus of important studies that examine patriarchy and society's need to punish its criminals in ways it paradoxically deemed more enlightened and humanitarian than in times past. Kahn uses substantial primary and secondary material. . . . Recommended."
Choice
"Mark E. Kann has written a fascinating, thought-provoking, and timely political-historical study of penal thought and practice in the formative years of the United States."
American Historical Review
Punishment, Prisons, and Patriarchy tells the story of how first-generation Americans coupled their legacy of liberty with a penal philosophy that promoted patriarchy, especially for marginal Americans.
American patriots fought a revolution in the name of liberty. Their victory celebrations barely ended before leaders expressed fears that immigrants, African Americans, women, and the lower classes were prone to vice, disorder, and crime.This spurred a generation of penal reformers to promote successfully the most systematic institution ever devised for stripping people of liberty: the penitentiary.
Today, Americans laud liberty but few citizens contest the legitimacy of federal, state, and local government authority to incarcerate 2 million people and subject another 4.7 million probationers and parolees to scrutiny, surveillance, and supervision. How did classical liberalism aid in the development of such expansive penal practices in the wake of the War of Independence?
Review
“Mark E. Kannhas written a fascinating, thought-provoking, and timely political-historical study of penal thought and practice in the formative years of the United States.”
-American Historical Review,
Review
“This work will take its place among the growing corpus of important studies that examine patriarchy and societys need to punish its criminals in ways it paradoxically deemed more enlightened and humanitarian than in times past. Kahn uses substantial primary and secondary material. . . . Recommended.”
-Choice,
Review
“This work will take its place among the growing corpus of important studies that examine patriarchy and society’s need to punish its criminals in ways it paradoxically deemed more enlightened and humanitarian than in times past. Kahn uses substantial primary and secondary material. . . . Recommended.”
“Mark E. Kannhas written a fascinating, thought-provoking, and timely political-historical study of penal thought and practice in the formative years of the United States.”
“This is a valuable book for those wishing to familiarize themselves with the scholarship on prison reform in the nineteenth-century United States.”
Review
“This is a valuable book for those wishing to familiarize themselves with the scholarship on prison reform in the nineteenth-century United States.”
-Men and Masculinities,
Review
"Makes a valuable contribution to the discourse on gender and citizenship."-Ethics,
Review
“Lister's Citizenship makes a valuable contribution to the discourse on gender and citizenship. . . . A very rich text that serves as a comprehensive introduction for anyone interested in these issues, while also providing nuanced arguments that will be of interest to scholars and policy makers.”-Ethics,
Review
"Ruth Lister is an admired and respected activist and policy analyst. Her book does a marvelous job of bringing together a wide variety of literature on citizenship—literatures that are currently confined to very separate boxes—and reaching a brand new synthesis on women's citizenship." -Jane Lewis,Oxford University
Synopsis
Punishment, Prisons, and Patriarchy tells the story of how first-generation Americans coupled their legacy of liberty with a penal philosophy that promoted patriarchy, especially for marginal Americans.
American patriots fought a revolution in the name of liberty. Their victory celebrations barely ended before leaders expressed fears that immigrants, African Americans, women, and the lower classes were prone to vice, disorder, and crime. This spurred a generation of penal reformers to promote successfully the most systematic institution ever devised for stripping people of liberty: the penitentiary.
Today, Americans laud liberty but few citizens contest the legitimacy of federal, state, and local government authority to incarcerate 2 million people and subject another 4.7 million probationers and parolees to scrutiny, surveillance, and supervision. How did classical liberalism aid in the development of such expansive penal practices in the wake of the War of Independence?
Synopsis
The competing pressures of globalization and immigration have forced people everywhere to think long and hard about what it means to be a citizen. In
Citizenship, Ruth Lister argues for a new feminist notion of citizenship, one that can accommodate difference.
Lister argues that citizenship has traditionally been a tool of social and political exclusion, inequality, and xenophobia. How, then, she asks, can it offer a solid foundation for progressive, non-discriminatory policymaking? Lister explores a range of disciplines and a burgeoning international literature on citizenship, pinpointing important theoretical issues and recasting traditional thinking about it, while exploring its political and policy implications for women in all their diversity. Themes of inclusion and exclusion (at the national and international level), rights and participation, inequality and difference are thus brought to the fore in the development of a "woman-friendly" theory of citizenship.
Wide-ranging, stimulating, and accessible, this pathbreaking book will be of particular interest and relevance to students, activists, and policymakers.
About the Author
Mark E. Kann, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and History, held the USC Associates Chair in Social Science at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Republic of Men (NYU Press, 1998) and Punishment, Prisons, and Patriarchy (NYU Press, 2005).