In this innovative study, Daniel A. Cohen explores a major cultural shift embodied in hundreds of early New England crime publications. Tracing the declining authority of Puritan ministers, he shows how the arbiters of an increasingly pluralistic literary marketplace gradually supplanted pious execution sermons with last-speech broadsides, gallows verses, criminal autobiographies, trial reports, newspaper stories, and romantic docudramas. ""Pillars of Salt, Monuments of Grace"" probes the forgotten origins of our modern mass media's pre-occupation with crime and punishment.
- ISBN13 9781558495296
- Publish Date 1 December 2006
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Massachusetts Press
- Format Paperback
- Pages 364
- Language English