Unsound Empire

Unsound Empire
Author: Catherine L. Evans
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2021-09-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300263023

A study of the internal tensions of British imperial rule told through murder and insanity trials Unsound Empire is a history of criminal responsibility in the nineteenth‑century British Empire told through detailed accounts of homicide cases across three continents. If a defendant in a murder trial was going to hang, he or she had to deserve it. Establishing the mental element of guilt—criminal responsibility—transformed state violence into law. And yet, to the consternation of officials in Britain and beyond, experts in new scientific fields posited that insanity was widespread and growing, and evolutionary theories suggested that wide swaths of humanity lacked the self‑control and understanding that common law demanded. Could it be fair to punish mentally ill or allegedly “uncivilized” people? Could British civilization survive if killers avoided the noose?

Spiritualism, Mesmerism and the Occult, 1800–1920 Vol 1

Spiritualism, Mesmerism and the Occult, 1800–1920 Vol 1
Author: Shane McCorristine
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 1950
Release: 2021-12-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000561445

This edition provides an insight into the dark areas between Victorian science, medicine and religion. The rare reset source material in this collection is organized thematically and spans the period from initial mesmeric experiments at the beginning of the nineteenth century to the decline of the Society for Psychical Research in the 1920s.

Philosophy

Philosophy
Author: Newberry Library
Publisher:
Total Pages: 282
Release: 1922
Genre: Classified catalogs
ISBN:

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation and Other Evolutionary Writings

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation and Other Evolutionary Writings
Author: Robert Chambers
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 720
Release: 1994-08-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780226100722

Originally published in 1844, Vestiges sparked one of the great intellectual controversies of the century. Integrating research in anthropology, geology, astronony, biology, economics, and chemistry, it was the first attempt to connect the natural sciences into a history of creation. The author, whose identity was not revealed until 1884, was Robert Chambers (1802-71), a leading Scottish writer and publisher. Vestiges reached a huge popular audience in Europe and America and was widely read by the social and intellectual elite. It fostered debate about natural law, setting the stage for the controversy over Darwin's Origin. In response to criticism, Chambers published Explanations: A Sequel, which offered a reasoned defense of his ideas about progressive development, castigating what he saw as the narrowness of specialist science. This volume, which also includes Chambers's earliest cosmological writings, a bibliography of reviews, and a comprehensive new index, illuminates the changing meanings of science and religion in the Victorian era and the rise of secular ideologies in Western culture. -- from back cover.

Troubled by Faith

Troubled by Faith
Author: Owen Davies
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2023-09-28
Genre: Belief and doubt
ISBN: 019887300X

The nineteenth century was a time of extraordinary scientific innovation, but with the rise of psychiatry, faiths and popular beliefs were often seen as signs of a diseased mind. By exploring the beliefs of asylum patients, we see the nineteenth century in a new light, with science, faith, and the supernatural deeply entangled in a fast-changing world. The birth of psychiatry in the early nineteenth-century fundamentally changed how madness was categorised and understood. A century on, their conceptions of mental illness continue to influence our views today. Beliefs and behaviour were divided up into the pathological and the healthy. The influence of religion and the supernatural became significant measures of insanity in individuals, countries, and cultures. Psychiatrists not only thought they could transform society in the industrial age but also explain the many strange beliefs expressed in the distant past. Troubled by Faith explores these ideas about the supernatural across society through the prism of medical history. It is a story of how people continued to make sense of the world in supernatural terms, and how belief came to be a medical issue. This cannot be done without exploring the lives of those who found themselves in asylums because of their belief in ghosts, witches, angels, devils, and fairies, or because they though themselves in divine communication, or were haunted by modern technology. The beliefs expressed by asylum patients were not just an expression of their individual mental health, but also provide a unique reflection of society at the time - a world still steeped in the ideas and imagery of folklore and faith in a fast-changing world.