From the tragic tale of Mary Clifford, whose death at the hands of her employer scandalised Georgian London, to an account of the violent activities of Victorian Manchester's scuttling gangs, via a character portrait of the duel-obsessed Cavalier Sir John Reresby, A Fiery & Furious People explores the brutal underside of our national life in all its variety. And as it considers the litany of assaults, murders and riots that pepper our history, it also traces the subtle shifts that have taken place both in the nature of violence and in people's attitudes to it. Why was it, for example, that wife-beating could at once be simultaneously legal and so frowned upon that persistent offenders might well end up being ducked in the village pond? When did the serial killer first make an appearance in the annals of English crime? How could football be regarded at one moment as a raucous pastime that should be banned, and the next as a respectable sport that should be encouraged? What gave rise to particular types of violent criminal – medieval outlaws, Georgian highwaymen, Victorian garroters – and what made them dwindle and then vanish?Throughout, Professor James Sharpe draws on an astonishingly wide range of material – court records and murder pamphlets, popular ballads and novels, sermons and films – to paint vivid pictures of the nation's criminals and criminal system from medieval times to the present day. He gives a strong sense of what it was like to be caught up in, say, a street brawl in medieval Oxford or a battle during the English Civil War. And he also seeks to answer perhaps the most fascinating and fundamental question of all: is a country that has experienced not only constant aggression on an individual scale but also the Peasants' Revolt, the Gordon Riots, the Poll Tax protests and the urban unrest of summer 2011 naturally prone to violence or are we, in fact, gradually becoming a gentler nation?

A Fiery & Furious People: A History of Violence in England

History

SHARPE, James

Europe

Arrow

Physical description; xiv, 364 p. ; 25 cm. Subjects; Witchcraft - England - History. Trials (Witchcraft) - England - History.

Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England, 1550-1750

Religion & Spirituality

New Age & Spirituality

Hamish Hamilton

In 1604, 20-year-old Anne Gunter was bewitched: she foamed at the mouth, contorted wildly in her bedchamber, went into trances. Her garters and bodices were perpetually unlacing themselves. Her signature symptom was to vomit pins and "she voided some pins downwards as well by her water or otherwise.." Popular history at its best, "The Bewitching of Anne Gunter" opens a fascinating window onto the past. It's a tale of controlling fathers, willful daughters, nosy neighbors, power relations between peasants and gentry, and village life in early-modern Europe. Above all it's an original and revealing story of one young woman's experience with the greatly misunderstood phenomenon of witchcraft. James Sharpe is Professor of History at York University and the author of "Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in" "Early Modern History" and other works of social history.

The Bewitching of Anne Gunter: A Horrible and True Story of Deception, Witchcraft, Murder, and the King of England

Americas

Routledge

The Bewitching of Anne Gunter

In the early hours of November 5, 1605, Guy Fawkes, an English Catholic who had served with the Spanish army in Flanders, was discovered in a storeroom under the Palace of Westminster―and with him, thirty-six barrels of gunpowder earmarked to obliterate England’s royal family, top officials, and members of Parliament gathered for Parliament’s opening day. Had it succeeded, this Gunpowder Plot―a Catholic conspiracy against the recently crowned Protestant King James I and his government―English history would have been shaped by a terrorist act of unprecedented proportions.
Today Guy Fawkes―whose name has long stood for the conspiracy―is among the most notorious figures in English history; and Bonfire Night, observed every November 5th to memorialize the narrowly foiled Gunpowder Plot, is one of the country’s most festive occasions. Why has the memory of this act of treason and terrorism persisted for 400 years? In Remember, Remember James Sharpe takes us back to 1605 and teases apart the tangled web of religion and politics that gave rise to the plot. And, with considerable wit, he shows how celebration of that fateful night, and the representation of Guy Fawkes, has changed over the centuries.
James Sharpe’s colorfully told story has wide implications. The plot of 1605 has powerful resonances today, in a time of heightened concern about ideological conflict, religious fanaticism, and terrorism. And his account of the festivities marking the momentous event comments on the role of rituals in constructing national histories.

Remember, Remember: A Cultural History of Guy Fawkes Day (Profiles in History)

Harvard University Press

They flew through the air, consorted with animals, and made pacts with the devil. Witches were as unquestioned as alchemy or astrology in medieval England; yet it wasn't until the midsixteenth century that laws were passed against them. Now a leading historian of crime and society in early modern England offers the first scholarly overview of witchcraft in that country in over eighty years, examining how tensions between church, state, and society produced widespread distrust among fearful people.
Instruments of Darkness takes readers back to a time when witchcraft was accepted as reality at all levels of society. James Sharpe draws on legal records and other sources to reveal the interplay between witchcraft beliefs in different partts in the social hierarchy. Along the way, he offers disturbing accounts of witch-hunts, such as the East Anglian trials of 1645-47 that sent more than 100 people to the gallows. He tells how poor, elderly women were most often accused of witchcraft and challenges feminist claims that witch-hunts represented male persecution by showing that many accusers were themselves women.
Prosecution of witches gradually declined with increasing skepticism among jurists, new religious attitudes, and scientific advances that explained away magic. But for two hundred years, thousands participated in one of history's most notorious persecutions. Instruments of Darkness is a fascinating case study that deepens our understanding of this age-old cultural phenomenon and sheds new light on one society in which it occurred.

Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in Early Modern England

University of Pennsylvania Press

Imaging in Developmental Biology: A Laboratory Manual

New imaging technologies have revolutionized the study of developmental biology. Where researchers once struggled to connect events at static timepoints, imaging tools now offer the ability to visualize the dynamic form and function of molecules, cells, tissues, and whole embryos throughout the entire developmental process. Imaging in Developmental Biology: A Laboratory Manual, a new volume in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press' Imaging series, presents a comprehensive set of essential visualization methods. The manual features primers on live imaging of a variety of standard model organisms including C. elegans, Drosophila, zebrafish, Xenopus, avian species, and mouse. Further techniques are organized by the level of visualization they provide, from cells to tissues and organs to whole embryos. Methods range from the basics of labeling cells to cutting-edge protocols for high-speed imaging, optical projection tomography, and digital scanned laser light-sheet fluorescence. Imaging has become a required methodology for developmental biologists, and Imaging in Developmental Biology: A Laboratory Manual provides the detailed explanations and instructions for mastering these necessary techniques.

Science & Math

Wong, Rachel

Yuste, Rafael

Biological Sciences

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press

Political Prisoner

Nutany Publishing Company

This chronological collection charts the change in attitudes to witchcraft during the period 1560-1736, which culminates in the educated debate on the reality of witchcraft and the gradual decline in belief in witches and associated phenomena.

English Witchcraft, 1560-1736, vol 1

Golden, Richard

English Witchcraft, 1560-1736, vol 2

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