In a comprehensive examination of rape and its prosecution in British America between 1700 and 1820, Block analyzes the legal, social, and cultural implications of more than nine hundred documented incidents of sexual coercion and hundreds more extralegal commentaries found in almanacs, newspapers, broadsides, and other print and manuscript sources. She demonstrates that public definitions of rape were based less on what actually happened than on who was involved. Early Americans' treatment of rape, she argues, both enacted ...
Read More
In a comprehensive examination of rape and its prosecution in British America between 1700 and 1820, Block analyzes the legal, social, and cultural implications of more than nine hundred documented incidents of sexual coercion and hundreds more extralegal commentaries found in almanacs, newspapers, broadsides, and other print and manuscript sources. She demonstrates that public definitions of rape were based less on what actually happened than on who was involved. Early Americans' treatment of rape, she argues, both enacted and helped to sustain the social, racial, gender, and political hierarchies of a New World and a new nation.
Read Less
