1st Edition
A Protestant Purgatory Theological Origins of the Penitentiary Act, 1779
By Laurie Throness
Copyright 2008
390 Pages
by
Routledge
390 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
How did the penitentiary get its name? Why did the English impose long prison sentences? Did class and economic conflict really lie at the heart of their correctional system? In a groundbreaking study that challenges the assumptions of modern criminal justice scholarship, Laurie Throness answers many questions like these by exposing the deep theological roots of the judicial institutions of... Read more
Contents: Preface; Introduction; The terror of the Lord; The intermediate state; Building the penitentiary; Adam's doom; The man in the wooden cage; The measure of sin; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
Biography
Laurie Throness is a Canadian scholar who completed a PhD in History at Cambridge, following on his degrees in public policy and biblical studies.
’Exacting standards of scholarship underpin this work and this is an important new contribution to an act of Parliament but more generally to explaining a political and religious milieu set upon the saving of souls on Protestant terms.’ Parergon ’This meticulous and scholarly publication provides a wealth of primary evidence. ... [it is] an important contribution to comprehending the mental frameworks that led to the development of the penitentiary and the modern prison.’ American Historical Review
