Crime and Culture in Early Modern Germany

Nonfiction, History, European General
Cover of the book Crime and Culture in Early Modern Germany by Joy Wiltenburg, University of Virginia Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Joy Wiltenburg ISBN: 9780813933030
Publisher: University of Virginia Press Publication: January 7, 2013
Imprint: University of Virginia Press Language: English
Author: Joy Wiltenburg
ISBN: 9780813933030
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Publication: January 7, 2013
Imprint: University of Virginia Press
Language: English

With the growth of printing in early modern Germany, crime quickly became a subject of wide public discourse. Sensational crime reports, often featuring multiple murders within families, proliferated as authors probed horrific events for religious meaning. Coinciding with heightened witch panics and economic crisis, the spike in crime fears revealed a continuum between fears of the occult and more mundane dangers.

In Crime and Culture in Early Modern Germany, Joy Wiltenburg explores the beginnings of crime sensationalism from the early sixteenth century into the seventeenth century and beyond. Comparing the depictions of crime in popular publications with those in archival records, legal discourse, and imaginative literature, Wiltenburg highlights key social anxieties and analyzes how crime texts worked to shape public perceptions and mentalities. Reports regularly featured familial destruction, flawed economic relations, and the apocalyptic thinking of Protestant clergy. Wiltenburg examines how such literature expressed and shaped cultural attitudes while at the same time reinforcing governmental authority. She also shows how the emotional inflections of crime stories influenced the growth of early modern public discourse, so often conceived in terms of rational exchange of ideas.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

With the growth of printing in early modern Germany, crime quickly became a subject of wide public discourse. Sensational crime reports, often featuring multiple murders within families, proliferated as authors probed horrific events for religious meaning. Coinciding with heightened witch panics and economic crisis, the spike in crime fears revealed a continuum between fears of the occult and more mundane dangers.

In Crime and Culture in Early Modern Germany, Joy Wiltenburg explores the beginnings of crime sensationalism from the early sixteenth century into the seventeenth century and beyond. Comparing the depictions of crime in popular publications with those in archival records, legal discourse, and imaginative literature, Wiltenburg highlights key social anxieties and analyzes how crime texts worked to shape public perceptions and mentalities. Reports regularly featured familial destruction, flawed economic relations, and the apocalyptic thinking of Protestant clergy. Wiltenburg examines how such literature expressed and shaped cultural attitudes while at the same time reinforcing governmental authority. She also shows how the emotional inflections of crime stories influenced the growth of early modern public discourse, so often conceived in terms of rational exchange of ideas.

More books from University of Virginia Press

Cover of the book Raving at Usurers by Joy Wiltenburg
Cover of the book The True Geography of Our Country by Joy Wiltenburg
Cover of the book Fatal Politics by Joy Wiltenburg
Cover of the book Plotting Terror by Joy Wiltenburg
Cover of the book Paine and Jefferson in the Age of Revolutions by Joy Wiltenburg
Cover of the book Collegiate Republic by Joy Wiltenburg
Cover of the book The Last Afrikaner Leaders by Joy Wiltenburg
Cover of the book Immigration by Joy Wiltenburg
Cover of the book Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer by Joy Wiltenburg
Cover of the book Giant's Causeway by Joy Wiltenburg
Cover of the book The Way of the Stars by Joy Wiltenburg
Cover of the book Sounding the Break by Joy Wiltenburg
Cover of the book Visuality for Architects by Joy Wiltenburg
Cover of the book Black Aesthetics and the Interior Life by Joy Wiltenburg
Cover of the book Intelligent Infrastructure by Joy Wiltenburg
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy