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From Historical Social Science to the Historical Study of Crime

Roberto Catello
p. 33-58

Abstracts

This article develops a sui generis account of the genesis of the historical study of crime that resists the temptation to attribute the beginning of the social history of crime to the emergence of the “History from Below” movement of the 1970s. Written from the point of view of a historical criminologist, the article argues that studying crime historically requires giving equal weight to the “historical study of crime” and to the “criminological study of the past”. By arguing that the study of crime in historical perspective is best understood as a particular instantiation of what Immanuel Wallerstein called “historical social science”, the article develops a characterization of the historical study of crime that moves beyond its conventional representation as a history specialization.

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Excerpt

Full text document will be published online on October 2025.

Outline

Thinking historically about crime
Historical social science
Historical social science and social history
Conclusion

First lines

In the last quarter the twentieth century, the historical study of crime developed into a well-populated academic sub-field. “Crime history”, an unknown label in historical scholarship before World War II, is today an increasingly recognized professional and academic specialization within university settings and research institutes. Since the opening of the postgraduate Centre for Social History at the University of Warwick in 1968, writing the history of crime has become a transcontinental activity. Conventionally said to have been sparked by the working-class perspectives of British Marxist historians like E. P. Thompson, the historical study of crime has comfortably found its ways into university curricula, international conferences and intellectual fora. The history behind the emergence of this field of knowledge at the intersection of the study of the past and the study of crime has been extensively researched. Scholars generally take for granted that a serious interest in the ...

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References

Bibliographical reference

Roberto Catello, From Historical Social Science to the Historical Study of CrimeCrime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies, vol. 27, n°1 | 2023, 33-58.

Electronic reference

Roberto Catello, From Historical Social Science to the Historical Study of CrimeCrime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies [Online], vol. 27, n°1 | 2023, Online since 27 October 2025, connection on 21 May 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/chs/3413; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/chs.3413

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About the author

Roberto Catello

Lecturer in Criminology
Liverpool Hope University
catellr[at]hope.ac.uk

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Copyright

CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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