This study provides an accessible and authoritative account of poverty and deviance during the early modern period, informed by those perspectives on the role of the poor themselves in the provision of welfare services characteristic of much recent social history. Robert Jutte shows how the notions of poverty and social deviance that preoccupied much contemporary thought saw their ultimate fruition in the systematic programmes for social welfare that emerged during the nineteenth century. Contrary to the once-traditional historical emphasis on the ameliorative role of individual reformers, Professor Jutte's account looks much more closely at the poor themselves, and the complex network of social and communal relationships they inhabited. He examines the lives not only of poor relief recipients but of the vast number of destitute individuals who had to find other means to stay alive, and how these people shaped their own patterns of survival within given communities.

An accessible and authoritative account of poverty and deviance during the early modern period.
Reviews
"...an admirable scholarly synthesis deserving of a place in academic libraries..." D. C. Baxter, Choice
"...this is a learned and inclusive synthesis concerning what we know about poverty historically since the early modern period: its images, cause, extent, standard of living, self-help, reorganization of poor relief, forms of deviance, strategies of marginalization (stigmatizing, segregating, and confining), and a final section reporting reactions such as poverty subculture, rebellion, and (e)migration." Sixteenth Century Journal
"...this is a text which Europeanists and their students will find useful." Canadian Journal of History
"[JUEtte] has effectively shown how scholars focusing on poverty and deviance have 'modernized' their field of study by incorporating the perspectives of anthropology, linguistics, semiotics, and the new cultural history." | Steven G. Reinhardt, Journal of Interdisciplinary History



Book Information
ISBN 9780521423229
Author Robert Jutte
Format Paperback
Page Count 260
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 405g
Dimensions(mm) 228mm * 153mm * 18mm