A Fiery & Furious People: A History of Violence in England

by James Sharpe

Spanning some seven centuries, A Fiery & Furious People traces the subtle shifts that have taken place both in the nature of violence and in people’s attitudes to it. How could football be regarded at one moment as a raucous pastime that should be banned, and the next as a respectable sport that should be encouraged? When did the serial killer first make an appearance? What gave rise to particular types of violent criminal - medieval outlaws, Victorian garrotters – and what made them dwindle and then vanish? Above all, Professor James Sharpe hones in on a single, fascinating question: has the country that has experienced so much turmoil naturally prone to violence or are we, in fact, becoming a gentler nation?

Genres: History, Nonfiction, British Literature, European History

752 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2014

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[Nicki Markus · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Fiery and Furious People was an interesting read. Some chapters caught my attention more than others, and I preferred the information about historical events to that of the more recent past; however, overall it was a very engaging work that considered different elements of violence in their social and historical context. With its clear, readable prose, coupled with excellent detail and notes, this is a work that will appeal to both the casual non-fiction reader and those students of either English history or the history of violence, whether that encompasses criminal law and justice or areas such as highwayman and Victorian crime.

I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley.

[Maggi LeDuc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hear me out. Did it take me nearly 6 months to finish this book? Yeah. But it was excellent, I learned a lot! It's just long and packed with stats and evidence.

[Nick Hough]

I saw this title a good few years ago and I thought, that’s one for me, that’ll be interesting. Are we English violent? Are we more violent than other races? Is it our Anglo-Saxon or Norse heritage?

James Sharpe traces the social, cultural and legal history of violence from the Middle Ages to the present. It’s mostly readable, although there were a few sections I had to skip, particularly the section about serial killers. Not because I’m particularly squeamish, but because the work in those places was in danger of being about crime and legislation, rather than violence per se. That said, you can’t today discuss violence without discussing crime and punishment, and that, of itself, is an important finding of the book. What passes for violence has changed through the ages. The degree and type of violence that the common people, the law, and indeed the State, will accept or put up with, and where the line is to be drawn, has changed much over time.

Sharpe has chapters on various themes, as well as moving in a logical way from the past to the present.

He does note that most (although not all) violence is visited by men, and mostly, to be fair, on other men. It is men who are violent. Aggression plays a part.

Several more important conclusions are drawn. We should be careful of the danger of reading too much into crime statistics (or any statistics). Another: our world and the people in it are very much more complicated than it would appear from social media or from the pages of the Daily Mail. The nature of violence is changing; I don’t think it is getting less, although our tolerance of casual violence is lower than it was – just as it should be.

We come into a world now where social violence – trolling, online bullying etc – may need much more tightly regulating: because who needs a judge and jury when you’ve got Facebook?

[Dropbear123 · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5. Excellent, highly recommend if interested in English history or social history.

Very well written, enjoyable to read with the stories being well told. Good selection of cases used as well as the right amount of statistics to get the point across without being bogged down in them. There is a lot of analysis in each chapter as to the change in the kind of particular kind of violence (murder moving from mostly between male strangers/ acquaintances to being more domestic based over the centuries for example) over time as well as the change in attitudes towards the specific violence (such as views on wife beating or infanticide).

Part 1 is short and covers the medieval era - general violence but also the big events like the 1381 peasants revolt and the War of the Roses. It also has a bit on the ways that were meant to restrict violence like the Church or the ideal of chivalry and where these did and didn't work.

Part 2 covers up to the end of Victorians and each chapter covers a specific kind of violence like duelling, crime, domestic etc and how these changed over time. The author argues that violence declined fairly rapidly after the English Civil War. The main reason for this is the emergence of capitalism which led to the growth of a middle class who valued 'respectability' and had more stake in preserving the status quo. Additionally they had different views from other economic groups, for example they believed that domestic violence was something the lower classes did but they also thought the duelling culture of the aristocracy was a bit ridiculous.

Part 3 covers the 20th and 21st centuries with a similar style of each chapter focusing on a specific kind of crime. Personally my favourite chapter from this part of the book was focused on the depiction of violence in TV and movies (like the movie A Clockwork Orange) and the debates in society about if these contributed to violence in real life (the author argues they didn't/don't). In part 3 the author argues that for a variety of reasons (with an interesting theory that it is down to the deindustrialisation loosening the cohesion of society) violence rose in the 60s to 80s then declined rapidly, but this mainly reflects a decline in violence between strangers and acquaintances rather than a big decline in domestic violence.

There is a nice further reading list for each chapter but since I read this to clear my British history unread pile I doubt I will read anything on it.

Only complaint is that I personally found a couple of chapters to be boring (the slander/libel chapter and the historical sport related violence chapters), but that reflects my own interests rather than anything wrong with the book.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some very interesting material in this survey. But it combines warfare with sport and criminality in ways that seem to avoid its fascinating original question: what is "violence"?

[Adrian]

This 638 page monster is a testament to well written history. Sharpe's history ranges from medieval times to present day and covers every conceivable form of violence. Here is a sampling of facets I was unaware of until reading this book: in early medieval times it was believed corpses would bleed when the murderer was brought within sight of it, for centuries people believed words could carry curses that killed, charivari and skimmington were two methods of shaming wife beaters by singing songs outside their houses, the ducking stool and iron bridle were used as punishments for women scolds. In general English society is becoming less violent. The medieval era was most violent (chivalry added considerably to its bloodthirstiness) while present day has the lowest rate of violence. Crime has also changed in that it's carried out on people we know-friends and family- rather than strangers as it was formerly. Interestingly the US does not show this pattern. There is an excellent chapter on serial killers near the end which is wholly a modern trend. I'd read anything by Sharpe his writing is simple and direct just the way it ought to be.