Britain's “long” eighteenth century, which began with one aristocratic revolution in 1688 and ended with another in 1832, was a pageant of success. The nation's art and architecture reached their elegant and original best. Its capital became the center of print culture, finance, fashion, and commercial creativity, the largest and most vibrant city in the Western world. The British constitution became a topic for eulogy, as much by the unenlightened and illiterate at home as by the Enlightenment literati abroad. The armed forces, fiscal system, and bureaucracy of the British state grew in efficacy and range, bringing victory in all but one of a succession of major wars. Legitimized by achievement and buttressed by massive economic and political power, Britain's landed elite kept at bay every domestic revolution except the industrial one, which only enriched it more. The American Revolution, of course, was not averted; but while this crisis embarrassed the British Empire, it did not destroy it. Even before 1776, the conquest of Canada had reduced the thirteen colonies' strategic significance, just as their profitability to the mother country had been outstripped by its Indian possessions; their final loss was made up, and more than made up, with relentless and almost contemptuous speed. Between 1780 and 1820 some 150 million men and women in India, Africa, the West Indies, Java, and the China coast succumbed to British naval power and trading imperatives.

One of the most exciting and influential areas of research in eighteenth-century history over the last fifteen years has been the study of crime and the criminal law. It is the purpose of this essay to map the subject for the interested nonspecialist: to ask why historians have chosen to study it, to explain how they have come to approach it in particular ways, to describe something of what they have found, to evaluate those findings, and to suggest fruitful directions for further research. Like all maps, the one presented here is selective. The essay begins with a general analysis of the ways in which the field has developed and changed in its short life. It then proceeds to consider in more detail four areas of study: criminality, the criminal trial, punishment, and criminal legislation. This selection makes no pretense of providing an exhaustive coverage. A number of important areas have been omitted: for example, public order and policing. However, the areas covered illustrate the range of approaches, problems, and possibilities that lie within the field. The essay concludes with a discussion of the broader implications of the subject.

The Development of the Field

Before the 1960s crime was not treated seriously by eighteenth-century historians. Accounts of crime and the criminal law rarely extended beyond a few brief remarks on lawlessness, the Bloody Code, and the state of the prisons, often culled from Fielding, Hogarth, and Howard. There were exceptions, but they fell outside the mainstream of eighteenth-century history. The multiple volumes of Leon Radzinowicz's monumental History of the English Criminal Law and Its Administration from 1750 began to appear in 1948, but Radzinowicz worked in the Cambridge Law Faculty and the Institute of Criminology, and, as Derek Beales has pointed out, his findings were not quickly assimilated by historians.

The volume of publications on social history in the last decade has been enormous. The Royal Historical Society's Annual Bibliography of British History contains hundreds of new items each year, so many that keeping up with the latest research is almost impossible except within limited fields. The very quantity of material is a testament to the success of what has been termed the “new social history.” Taking as its focus the lives of the masses, this approach employs concepts and techniques drawn from cognate disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, and statistics to uncover the rich complexity of everyday life in the past. New interests, new methods, and a fresh look at underused primary sources: these are the hallmarks. This is not to say that it is a homogeneous “movement” since there are vigorous debates about central issues such as the use of theory and about the correct balance between quantification and traditional qualitative, intuitive approaches.

The new social history has had a profound effect on the way in which all historians deal with their subject and even on its critics. That social history has arrived as a leader in historical analysis is amply attested by G. R. Elton's recent call to political historians not to accept reduction to the status of its poor cousins. The subject's position is assured, and its achievements have been substantial. This article deals with the main areas of research in social history: population, social structure, education and literacy, women, religion, and the family.

Just before Christmas 1721 William Moore, described in court records as “a Pedler or Petty Chapman,” arrived in the frontier community of Berwick, Maine. Had Moore bothered to purchase a peddler's license, we would probably know nothing of his visit. He was undone by success. His illicit sales drew the attention of local authorities, and they confiscated Moore's “bagg or pack of goods.” From various witnesses the magistrates learned that the man came to Berwick with “sundry goods and Merchandizes for Saile & that he has Travelled from town to town Exposeing said Goods to Sale and has Sold to Sundry persons.”

The people of Berwick welcomed Moore to their isolated community. One can almost imagine the villagers, most of them humble farmers, rushing to Phillip Hubbard's house to examine the manufactured goods that the peddler had transported from Boston. Daniel Goodwin, for example, purchased “a yard and halfe of Stuff for handcarchiefs.” Sarah Gooding could not forgo the opportunity to buy some muslin, fine thread, and black silk. She also bought “a yard and Quarter of Lase for a Cap.” Patience Hubbard saw many things that she wanted, but in the end she settled for a “pare of garters.” Her neighbor, Sarah Stone, took home a bundle of “smole trifles.” None of the purchases amounted to more than a few pennies.

Colonial American historians have understandably overlooked such trifling transactions. They have concentrated instead on the structure of specific communities, and though they have taught us much about the people who lived in villages such as Berwick, they have generally ignored the social and economic ties that connected colonists to men and women who happened to dwell in other places.