Criminal Woman, the Prostitute, and the Normal Woman

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Duke University Press, 2004 - Social Science - 304 pages
Annotation Cesare Lombroso is widely considered the founder of the field of criminology. His theory of the born criminal dominated discussions of criminology in Europe and the Americas from the 1880s into the early twentieth century. His book, La donna delinquente, originally published in Italian in 1893, was the first and most influential book ever written on women and crime. This comprehensive new translation gives readers a full view of his landmark work. Lombrosos research took him to police stations, prisons, and madhouses where he studied the tattoos, cranial capacities, and sexual behavior of criminals and prostitutes to establish a female criminal type. Criminal Woman, the Prostitute, and the Normal Womananticipated todays theories of genetic criminal behavior. Lombroso used Darwinian evolutionary science to argue that criminal women are far more cunning and dangerous than criminal men. Designed to make his original text accessible to students and scholars alike, this volume includes extensive notes, appendices, a glossary, and more than thirty of Lombrosos own illustrations. Nicole Hahn Rafter and Mary Gibsons introduction, locating his theory in social context, offers a significant new interpretation of Lombrosos place in criminology.

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About the author (2004)

Cesare Lombroso (Verona, 6 novembre 1835 - Torino, 19 ottobre 1909), e stato un medico, antropologo, criminologo e giurista italiano. Esponente del Positivismo, e stato uno dei pionieri degli studi sulla criminalita, e fondatore dell'antropologia criminale. Il suo lavoro e stato fortemente influenzato dalla fisiognomica, dal darwinismo sociale e dalla frenologia.

Guglielmo Ferrero; July 21, 1871 - August 3, 1942) was an Italian historian, journalist and novelist, author of the Greatness and Decline of Rome (5 vols., published after English translation 1907-1909). Ferrero devoted his writings to classical liberalism and he opposed any kind of dictatorship and Big Government. Born in Portici, near Naples, Ferrero studied law in Pisa, Bologna and Turin. Soon afterward he married Gina Lombroso, a daughter of Cesare Lombroso, the criminologist and psychiatrist with whom he wrote Criminal Woman, the Prostitute and the Normal Woman. In 1891-1894 Ferrero traveled extensively in Europe and in 1897 wrote The Young Europe, a book which had a strong influence over James Joyce.[2] After studying the history of Rome Ferrero turned to political essays and novels (Between Two Worlds in 1913, Speeches to the Deaf in 1925 and The Two Truths in 1933-1939). When the fascist reign of Black Shirts forced liberal intellectuals to leave Italy in 1925, Ferrero refused and was placed under house arrest. In 1929 Ferrero accepted a professorship at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. His last works (Adventure, Bonaparte in Italy, The Reconstruction of Europe, The Principles of Power and The Two French Revolutions) were dedicated to the French Revolution and Napoleon. Ferrero was invited to the White House by Theodore Roosevelt in 1908. He gave lectures in the northeast of the USA which were collected and published in 1909 as Characters and Events of Roman History. Additionally, Theodore Roosevelt read "The Greatness and Decline of Rome." He died in 1942 at Mont-Pelerin-sur-Vevey, Switzerland. External links

Nicole Hahn Rafter is a professor in the College of Criminal Justice, Northeastern University. Her most recent book is White Trash: The Eugenic Family Studies, 1877-1919.

MARY GIBSON is Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate School, City University of New York.

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