This is the first collection of essays to survey punishment in England in the four centuries after 1500. Its principal concerns include the punishment of petty crime, the roots of transportation, mercy, changing perceptions of the nature and impact of capital punishment, and the cultural values affecting penal developments. The contributors explore compelling new bodies of evidence to offer fresh perspectives on this area.

Events such as the fire of London and the Plague, and locations like the Globe, are part of our 'national heritage' however until recently the history of London between 1500 and 1750 has been little studied. As a city London underwent exceptional changes - its population soared from around 50,000 in 1500 to approximately 200,000 in 1600 and by 1700 it was nearly half a million. Covering the themes of polis and the police, gender and sexuality, space and place, and material culture and consumption the book encounters thieves, prostitutes, litigious wives, the poor, disease, 'great quantities of gooseberry pye' and the very taxing question of fresh water. Focuses on the experiences and perceptions of Londoners, rather than giving an account of a depersonalized and disembodied thing called "London". Will be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of London or in the social and cultural history of early modern society. -- .

Archetypes of Transition in Diaspora Art and Ritual examines residually oral conventions that shape the black diaspora imaginary in the Caribbean and America. Colonial humanist violations and inverse issues of black cultural and psychological affirmation are indexed in terms of a visionary gestalt according to which inner and outer realities unify creatively in natural and metaphysical orders. Paul Griffith's central focus is hermeneutical, examining the way in which religious and secular symbols inherent in rite and word as in vodun, limbo, the spirituals, puttin' on ole massa, and dramatic and narrative structures, for example, are made basic to the liberating post-colonial struggle. This evident interpenetration of political and religious visions looks back to death-rebirth traditions through which African groups made sense of the intervention of evil into social order. Herein, moreover, the explanatory, epistemic, and therapeutic structures of art and ritual share correspondences with the mythic archetypes that Carl Jung posits as a psychological inheritance of human beings universally.

It is now well-known that there was a separate age of youth in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century society (and before) but in much of the writing on this subject, youth has emerged as a passive construct of the adult society, lacking formative experiences. Paul Griffiths seeks to redress this imbalance by presenting a more `positive' image of young people, showing that they had a creative presence, an identity, and a historical significance which has never been fully explored. The author looks beyond the prescriptive codes of moralists and governors to survey the attitudes and activities of young people, examining their reaction to authority and to society's concept of the `ideal place' for them in the social order. He sheds new light on issues as diverse as juvenile delinquency, masculinity, the celebration of Shrovetide, sexual behaviour and courtship, clothing, catechizing, office-holding, vocabularies of insult, prostitution, and church seating plans. His research reveals much about the nature of youth culture, religious commitment, and master/servant relations, and leads to the identification of a separate milieu of `masterless' young people. Contemporary moralists called youth `the choosing time', a time of great risks and great potential; and the best time to incalculate political conformity and sound religion. Yet the concept of choice was double-edged, it recognized that young people had other options besides these expectations. This ambiguity is a central theme of theis book which demonstrates that although there was a critical politics of age during this period, young people had their own initiatives and strategies and grew up in all sorts of ways.

The life and works of one of the most difficult yet rewarding composers of modern time. Jean Barraque is increasingly being recognized as one of the great composers of the second half of the 20th century. Though he left only seven works, his voice in each of them is unmistakeable, and powerful. He had no doubt of hisresponsibility, as a creator, to take his listeners on challenging adventures that could not but leave them changed. After the collapse of morality he had witnessed as a child growing up during the Second World War, and having taken notice of so much disarray in the culture around him, he set himself to make music that would, out of chaos, speak. Three others were crucial to him. One was Pierre Boulez, who, three years older, provided him with keysto a new musical language -- a language more dramatic, driving and passionate than Boulez's. Another was Michel Foucault, to whom he was close personally for a while, and with whom he had a dialogue that was determinative for bothof them. Finally, in the writings of Hermann Broch-and especially in the novel The Death of Virgil-he found the myth he needed to realize musically. He played for high stakes, and he took risks with himself as well as in hisart. Intemperate and difficult, even with his closest friends, he died in 1973 at the age of forty-five. Paul Griffiths was chief music critic for the London Times (1982-92) and The New Yorker (1992-96) and since 1996 has written regularly for the New York Times. He has written books on Boulez, Cage, Messiaen, Ligeti, Davies, Bartok and Stravinsky, as well as several librettos, among them The Jewel Box (Mozart, 1991), Marco Polo (Tan Dun, 1996) and What Next? (Elliott Carter, 1999).

Olivier Messiaen was one of the outstanding creative artists of his time. The strength of his appeal, to listeners as well as to composers, is a measure of the individuality of his music, which draws on a vast range of sources: rhythms of twentieth-century Europe and thirteenth-century India, ripe romantic harmony and brittle birdsong, the sounds of Indonesian percussion and modern electronic instruments. What binds all these together is, on one level, his unswerving devotion to praising God in his art, and on another, his independent view of how music is made. Messiaen's music offers a range of ways of experiencing time: time suspended in music of unparalleled changelessness, time racing in music of wild exuberance, time repeating itself in vast cycles of reiteration. In Olivier Messiaen and the Music of Time, leading writer and musicologist, Paul Griffiths, explores the problems of religious art, and includes searching analyses and discussions of all the major works, suggesting how they function as works of art and not only as theological symbols. This comprehensive and stimulating book covers the whole of Messiaen's output up to and including his opera, Saint Francoise d'Assise.

Returned from twenty years of travelling in China, Marco Polo now languishes in a Genoan prison cell. But his fellow inmate, Rustichello of Pisa, turns out to be an author of popular romances and persuades Polo to dictate his memoirs to him. The scribe listens, ignores, alters and embellishes. The consequent ironies, uncertainties, slippages between fact and fiction are the very stuff of the post-modern writer. On first publication in 1989, it was widely praised. 'The narrative loops are as graceful as any Arabian calligraphy ... Paul Griffiths writes superbly.' Hilary Mantel, Daily Telegraph 'A thoroughly modern piece of fiction which queries the nature of authorship, readership and truth itself ... Marco's doubtful account of himself rapidly falters and falls victim to ambiguity, paradox, self-reference, wilful anachronism and parody.' Robert Irwin, TLS

Engaging, clear and informative, this is the story of western music - of its great composers and also of its performers and listeners, of changing ideas of what music is and what it is for. Paul Griffiths shows how music has evolved through the centuries, and suggests how its evolution has mirrored developments in the human notion of time, from the eternity of heaven to the computer's microsecond. The book provides an enticing introduction for students and beginners, using the minimum of technical terms, all straightforwardly defined in the glossary. Its perspective and its insights will also make it illuminating for teachers, musicians and music lovers. Suggestions for further reading and recommended recordings are given for each of the 24 short chapters.

A major study of the transformation of early modern London. By focusing on policing, prosecution, and the language and perceptions of the authorities and the underclasses, Paul Griffiths explores the swift growth of London and the changes to its cultures, communities, and environments. Through a series of thematic chapters he maps problem areas and people; reconstructs the atmosphere of the streets; and traces the development of policing in the city. The book provided the first full study of petty crime before 1660, analysing worlds and words of crime, criminal rings and cultures, and tracking changing meanings of crime to reveal alternative emphases on environmental crimes and crimes committed by women. It also examines the key roles of Bridewell prison, hospitals, medical provision, and penal practices, shedding light on investigation, detection, surveillance, and public prosecution. Viewed through this fascinating account, the city will never look the same again.

In the past century, nearly all of the biological sciences have been directly affected by discoveries and developments in genetics, a fast-evolving subject with important theoretical dimensions. In this rich and accessible book, Paul Griffiths and Karola Stotz show how the concept of the gene has evolved and diversified across the many fields that make up modern biology. By examining the molecular biology of the 'environment', they situate genetics in the developmental biology of whole organisms, and reveal how the molecular biosciences have undermined the nature/nurture distinction. Their discussion gives full weight to the revolutionary impacts of molecular biology, while rejecting 'genocentrism' and 'reductionism', and brings the topic right up to date with the philosophical implications of the most recent developments in genetics. Their book will be invaluable for those studying the philosophy of biology, genetics and other life sciences.

A choice selection of essays, reviews and interviews providing insights into musical performance, composition in the late 20th century and very early 21st, and the nature of opera. Paul Griffiths offers his own personal selection of some of his most substantial and imaginative articles and concert reviews from over three decades of indefatigable concertgoing around the world. He reports on premieres and other important performances of works by such composers as Elliott Carter, Sofia Gubaidulina, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Steve Reich, as well as Harrison Birtwistle and other important British figures. Griffiths vividly conveys the vision, aura, and idiosyncrasies of prominent pianists, singers, and conductors [such as Herbert von Karajan], and debates changing styles of performing Monteverdi and Purcell. A particular delight is his response to the worldof opera, including Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande [six contrasting productions], Pavarotti and Domingo in Verdi at New York's Metropolitan Opera, Schoenberg's Moses and Aaron, and two wildly different Jonathan Miller versions of Mozart's Don Giovanni. From the author's preface: "We cannot say what music is. Yet we are verbal creatures, and strive with words to cast a net around it, knowing most of this immaterial stuff will evadecapture. The stories that follow cover a wide range of events over a period of great change. Yet the net's aim was always the same, to catch the substance of things heard. "Criticism has to work largely by analogy and metaphor. This is no limitation. It is largely through such verbal ties that music is linked to other sorts of experience, not least the natural world and the orchestra of our feelings." Paul Griffiths's reviews and articleshave appeared extensively in both Britain [Times, Financial Times, Times Literary Supplement] and the United States [New Yorker, New York Times]. He has written numerous books on Bartok, Cage, Messiaen, Boulez, Maxwell Davies, twentieth-century music, opera, and the string quartet, and is the author of the recent Penguin Companion to Classical Music. He is also author of The Sea on Fire: Jean Barraque.

A major study of the transformation of early modern London. By focusing on policing, prosecution, and the language and perceptions of the authorities and the underclasses, Paul Griffiths explores the swift growth of London and the changes to its cultures, communities, and environments. Through a series of thematic chapters he maps problem areas and people; reconstructs the atmosphere of the streets; and traces the development of policing in the city. The book provided the first full study of petty crime before 1660, analysing worlds and words of crime, criminal rings and cultures, and tracking changing meanings of crime to reveal alternative emphases on environmental crimes and crimes committed by women. It also examines the key roles of Bridewell prison, hospitals, medical provision, and penal practices, shedding light on investigation, detection, surveillance, and public prosecution. Viewed through this fascinating account, the city will never look the same again.

The English were punished in many different ways in the five centuries after 1500. This collection stretches from whipping to the gallows, and from the first houses of correction to penitentiaries. Punishment provides a striking way to examine the development of culture and society through time. These studies of penal practice explore violence, cruelty and shame, while offering challenging new perspectives on the timing of the decline of public punishment, the rise of imprisonment and reforms of the capital code.

Includes explanatory essays on the opera by Gabriel Josipovici and Paul Griffiths, a detailed synopsis, an outline of the work's performance history, and a discussion of its genesis as well as a discography and bibliography.

Engaging, clear and informative, this is the story of western music - of its great composers and also of its performers and listeners, of changing ideas of what music is and what it is for. Paul Griffiths shows how music has evolved through the centuries, and suggests how its evolution has mirrored developments in the human notion of time, from the eternity of heaven to the computer's microsecond. The book provides an enticing introduction for students and beginners, using the minimum of technical terms, all straightforwardly defined in the glossary. Its perspective and its insights will also make it illuminating for teachers, musicians and music lovers. Suggestions for further reading and recommended recordings are given for each of the 24 short chapters.

In the past century, nearly all of the biological sciences have been directly affected by discoveries and developments in genetics, a fast-evolving subject with important theoretical dimensions. In this rich and accessible book, Paul Griffiths and Karola Stotz show how the concept of the gene has evolved and diversified across the many fields that make up modern biology. By examining the molecular biology of the 'environment', they situate genetics in the developmental biology of whole organisms, and reveal how the molecular biosciences have undermined the nature/nurture distinction. Their discussion gives full weight to the revolutionary impacts of molecular biology, while rejecting 'genocentrism' and 'reductionism', and brings the topic right up to date with the philosophical implications of the most recent developments in genetics. Their book will be invaluable for those studying the philosophy of biology, genetics and other life sciences.

The years between 1550 and 1700 saw significant changes in the nature and scope of local government: sophisticated information and intelligence systems were developed; magistrates came to rely more heavily on surveillance to inform 'good government'; and England's first nationwide system of incarceration was established within bridewells. But while these sizeable and lasting shifts have been well studied, less attention has been paid to the important characteristic that they shared: the 'turning inside' of the title. What was happening beneath this growth in activity was a shift from 'open' to 'closed' management of a host of problems—from the representation of authority itself to treatment of every kind of local disorder, from petty crime and poverty to dirty streets. Information, Institutions, and Local Government in England, 1150-1700 explores the character and consequences of these changes for the first time. Drawing on wide-ranging archival research in 34 archives, the book examines the ways in which the notion of representing authority and ethics in public (including punishment) was increasingly called into question in early modern England, and how and why local government officials were involved in this. This 'turning inside' was encouraged by insistence on precision and clarity in broad bodies of knowledge, culture, and practice that had lasting impacts on governance, as well as a range of broader demographic, social, and economic changes that led to deeper poverty, thinner resources, more movement, and imagined or real crime-waves. In so doing, and by drawing on a diverse range of examples, the book offers important new perspectives on local government, visual representation, penal cultures, institutions, incarceration, and surveillance in the early modern period.

Musik bewegt sich in der Zeit und darin gleicht sie unserem Leben. Ausgehend von diesem Gedanken schreibt der Autor eine mitreißende und kompakte Geschichte der westlichen Musik von ihren Anfängen bis ins 21. Jahrhundert der Komponisten, Interpreten und Zuhörer. An 24 Stationen der Geschichte hält er inne und betrachtet anhand der Komponisten, ihrer Werke und des gesellschaftlichen Umfelds die sich wandelnden Vorstellungen darüber, was Musik ist und wofür sie gemacht wird. 

In this cahier Paul Griffiths effects a multi-layered translation, taking a series of eleven Japanese noh plays and turning them into stories in English. The reader will encounter spirit-beings set free, lovers lost and found, dreams and desires fulfilled, lessons learned from nature, and always a longing for the infinite, as the long, slow drama of each noh play is transformed into a short and moving tale. Interspersed and contrasting with the stories are ten photographs of contemporary Japan by John L. Tran which further explore the relation between theatricality and narrative, while offering hints of a very different vision of infinitude.