Vice, Crime, and Poverty - How the Western Imagination Invented the Underworld

Vice, Crime, and Poverty traces the untold history of the concept of the underworld and its representations in popular culture. From the Parisian demimonde to Victorian squalor, from the slums of New York to the sewers of Buenos Aires, Dominique Kalifa deciphers the making of an image that has cast an enduring spell on its audience.

List of contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword
Introduction
Part I: The Advent of the Lower Depths
1. In the Den of Horror
2. Courts of Miracles
3. “Dangerous Classes”
Part II: Scenarios of Society’s Underside
4. Empire of Lists
5. The Disguised Prince
6. The Grand Dukes’ Tour
7. Poetic Flight
Part III: Ebbing of an Imaginary
8. Slow Eclipse of the Underworld
9. Persistent Shadows
10. Roots of Fascination
Conclusion
Notes
Index

About the author

Dominique Kalifa (1957–2020) was professor of history and director of the Center for Nineteenth-Century History at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon–Sorbonne. His books include The Belle Époque: A Cultural History, Paris and Beyond (Columbia, 2021).

Sarah Maza is Jane Long Professor in the Arts and Sciences and professor of history at Northwestern University.

Summary

Vice, Crime, and Poverty traces the untold history of the concept of the underworld and its representations in popular culture. From the Parisian demimonde to Victorian squalor, from the slums of New York to the sewers of Buenos Aires, Dominique Kalifa deciphers the making of an image that has cast an enduring spell on its audience.

Additional text

Beautiful book, rich of literature, anecdotes, stories. . . . Highly recommended.

Product details

• Authors: Dominique Kalifa
• Assisted by: Sarah Maza (Foreword), Maza Sarah (Foreword), Susan Emanuel (Translation), Emanuel Susan (Translation)
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.08.2021
• EAN: 9780231187435
• ISBN: 978-0-231-18743-5
• No. of pages: 296
• Series: European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Social sciences, law, business > Law > Criminal law, criminal procedural law, criminology; Popular Culture, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Poverty & Homelessness, Social & cultural history, HISTORY / Modern / 19th Century, HISTORY / Europe / Western, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Urban, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Prostitution & Sex Trade, Poverty & unemployment, Social and cultural history, Western Europe, Crime and criminology, Crime & criminology, Urban communities, Poverty and precarity, Western Continental Europe