Skip to content
Scan a barcode
Scan
Hardcover The Hangman's Knot: Lynching, Legal Execution, and America's Struggle with the Death Penalty Book

ISBN: 081334042X

ISBN13: 9780813340425

The Hangman's Knot: Lynching, Legal Execution, and America's Struggle with the Death Penalty

Select Format

Select Condition ThriftBooks Help Icon

Recommended

Format: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good*

*Best Available: (ex-library)

$6.39
Save $24.56!
List Price $30.95
Almost Gone, Only 1 Left!

Book Overview

Public executions were once commonplace American spectacles. In one instance, Puritan clergymen convicted and executed nineteen people for the "crime" of witchcraft. On the other side of the country many years later, San Francisco's city fathers held "official" vigilante hangings. But today, executions are rigidly controlled bureaucratic procedures authorized by the state. In The Hangman's Knot: Lynching, Legal Execution, and America's Struggle with the Death Penalty , Eliza Steelwater presents a fascinating history of execution in the United States, from colonial times to the present. With a compelling narrative and gripping personal stories, she documents how this debate became one of the most contentious of our time. The author, a veteran death-penalty researcher and co-founder of Project HAL (Historical American Lynching), shows that the answer to the death penalty's future lies in a discussion of its past. Using information from Project HAL and the authoritative Capital Punishment Research Project - including records of over 15,000 legal executions and 4,500 lynchings nationwide - Steelwater delivers a vivid understanding that America's unparalleled and powerful 200-year-old policy of execution as "punishment politics" is alive and well today. Bringing a fresh perspective to the death-penalty debate, she demonstrates that execution has often had less to do with crimes committed than with the political and economic ambitions of those who controlled the punishment system.

Customer Reviews

0 rating
Copyright © 2025 Thriftbooks.com Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information | Cookie Policy | Cookie Preferences | Accessibility Statement
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
GoDaddy Verified and Secured