Review by Choice Review
Using courtroom testimony as her primary source, Schulte delves into its "specific form of actions, images, words and gestures" to analyze the frontier between traditional village culture, characterized by the importance of family and land ownership, and the new bourgeois society. The remarkable tenacity of village society into the present era is affirmed in the urban district courts. The three crimes analyzed each have a place in rural tradition. Arson is primarily the work of landless or lower-class men, an act of revenge against unjust or arbitrary employers. Infanticide is the secret act of unmarried farm maids who fear that an additional mouth to feed may result in loss of employment. Often these women have other children in foster care. Poaching is simultaneously a "rite of passage" for adolescent men and a symbolic protest against the arbitrary authority that prevents peasants from hunting, even on their own lands. Village conflicts can be perceived by the denunciation of arsonists and poachers by members of their own community, and by "gossip" about the apparently pregnant farm maids. This innovative book establishes an intersection between structuralist analysis and psychohistory in a most readable way. The examination is well illustrated by actual testimony and, in one section, by a variety of peasant folk songs about poaching. It is certainly accessible to readers at all levels, although its focus may make it of greatest value to upper-division students of social history, including gender issues. No index, but the well-defined table of contents is an adequate guide. E. L. Turk; Indiana University East
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
