Police Forces: A Cultural History of an Institution

This collection focuses on the cultural history of the police as an institution from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. Contrary to most studies on the law and the state, Police Forces demonstrates how profoundly modern democracies are enveloped by more informal and less codified modes of social control. In a time when the rule of law appears to be on the retreat, 'police studies' emerges as a field in its own right. This volume helps stake out this new discipline, including the intricate link between police and the law, 'might' and 'right,' state violence, surveillance technologies, politics and resistance. Police Forces considers the question of law and order from below: alleyways, borders, police stations, law offices, bureaucracies, and the minds of administrators, in which the quotidian workings of the law unfold.

'It is unusual for a collection of essays to form such a seamless whole as in the case of Police Forces. Mladek has brought together a superb group of international scholars, whose contributions illuminate, often in startling ways, the history of the 'police' in reality and imagination. One is uncertain whether to praise the book more for the acuteness of its historical analyses or for its urgent contemporary relevance. This is an exemplary and pioneering contribution that will have a major impact on work in cultural studies.' - David E. Wellbery, University of Chicago

'By tracing the history of modern police activity, largely through a German lens, this illuminating volume helps us understand the central and expanding role of policing.More than law or even war-making, policing may be emerging as the primary field for the exercise of power in contemporary society.' - Michael Hardt, Duke University

Autorentext
KLAUS MLADEK is Assistant Professor of German Studies at Dartmouth College, USA.

Zusammenfassung
Police Forces considers the question of law and order from below: alleyways, borders, police stations, law offices, bureaucracies, and the minds of administrators, in which the quotidian workings of the law unfold.

Inhalt
Police versus Politics; K.Mladek War-A Fortuitous Occasion for social Disciplining and Political Centralization? The Case of Bavaria under Maximilian I; S.Haude State Desire. On the Epoch of Police; J.Vogl Is it useful to deceive the people? Secrecy and Deception as Political Resources; M.Schweska A City Tracks a Murderer: Mass Murder and Mass Public in Weimar Germany; T.Herzog Nurturing the New Republic; S.Hall How Fat Detectives Think; S.Gilman 'Passer à l'acte': Policing in the Office. Notes on Industry Standards and the Große Polizeiausstellung of 1926; S.Spieker Hitchcock's Truth or Why The Wrong Man is not a Suspense Film; H.von.Herrmann Exception Rules: Contemporary Political Theory and the Police; K.Mladek Police, Paranoia, and Theater in Thomas Pynchon's Vineland; M.Puchner A Critique of Community Policing; W.Lyons