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REVIEWS
| Men of Blood: Violence, Manliness, and Criminal Justice in Victorian England. By Martin Wiener (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. xvi plus 296 pp. $70.00).
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| Given that "one of the most fundamental obstacles to social order and peace has been the nature of males," (1) masculinity's relevance to the topic of violence would seem self-evident. Nevertheless, despite the rapid expansion of criminal justice history, masculinity has tended—with some exceptions—to either be ignored or viewed rather simplistically. Furthermore, gendered analyses of Victorian violence have largely focused on constructions of dutiful femininity that excused men's "disciplinary" violence and an all-male judiciary that stood idly by or even actively supported male household dominance. In Men of Blood, Martin Wiener adds not only a great deal of new information but also a much needed conceptual subtlety to our understandings of violence, gender and the law. |
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Wiener offers a detailed analysis of legal and newspaper evidence without losing sight of wider-ranging social issues. He examines cases of serious violent crime (mainly homicide and rape), links them to constructions of gender and locates a decisive shift in attitudes toward male violence. As a central theme, Wiener emphasizes a "reconstruction of gender" (hitherto "unappreciated" in criminal justice history): women came to be seen as more moral and vulnerable while men were perceived as "more dangerous, more than ever in need of external disciplines and, most of all, self-discipline" (3). This emphasis on the interrelationship between masculinity and femininity continues throughout the book. |
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