ABSTRACT
In recognition of the tremendous amount of publishing on early modern European poverty and crime, the National Endowment for the Humanities has supported a thematically organized and annotated bibliography of work. Historians of the mid-20th century did not invent the study of crime and poverty, but built upon and modified patterns set by predecessors. Turn-of-the-century French scholars, for example, produced several useful studies of early modern poor relief. Critics group the focus on marginality with other new interests, most notably gender studies, but also with studies of attitudes toward death and aging, and with new fields of inquiry, such as the family, childhood, public health practice, or in-depth histories of previously unstudied individuals. Interest in society’s margins drew further encouragement from writers associated with Structuralist theory, most importantly Claude Levi-Strauss and Michel Foucault.
