This book presents research on the history of criminology from the late-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century in Western Europe (Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Italy) and in Argentina, Australia, Japan, and the United States. Approaching the history of criminology as a history of science and practice, the essays examine the discourse on crime and criminals that surfaced as part of different discourses and practices, including the activities of the police and the courts, parliamentary debates, media reports, as well as the writings of moral statisticians, jurists, and medical doctors. In addition, the book seeks to elucidate the relationship between criminological discourse and politics, society, and culture by providing a comparative study of the worldwide reception of Cesare Lombroso's criminal-anthropological ideas.

"...an excellent example of the kind of fruitful, elucidating, and exciting ideas that can result from international scholarly exchanges...[Becker and Wetzell] are to be commended for assembling such a varied and yet surprisingly focused collection of writings that will provide historians with new methods and models for thinking about the history of crime and punishment in world-historical perspective."
H-France Review, Allyson J. Delnore, Marquette University.

"...well documented and carefully reasoned essays dealing with the historical core of criminology..." -Roberta Panzarella, The American Journal of Legal History

"...the thrust and the content of the book works well....this is an important collection that no one interested in criminal justice in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries can afford to ignore."
--Clive Emsley, Open University, The International History Review