Citation

McGowen R. Br. J. Criminol. 2000; 40(1): 1-13.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Publisher Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/bjc/40.1.1

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In 1994 V. A. C. Gatrell published The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People 1770-1868. Though the book has been widely cited by historians, its complex argument about the relationship between punishment and culture has been too little understood. The work has also failed to win the wider audience it deserves among social scientists. The purpose of this review is to explicate Gatrell's thesis, making clear the psychoanalytic assumptions that guide his investigation. It also evaluates his investigation. It also evaluates his claims about the impact and meaning of a revolution in sensibility in connection with the decline in the use of capital punishment and the eventual disappearance of the execution from public view. Even as it acknowledges the striking importance of his historical research, this essay raises questions about the causal explanation Gatrell offers for the remarkable transformation he describes.