Anthony Dykes
Out of Fashion
Hanging in Judgment: Religion and the Death Penalty in England
By Harry Potter
SCM Press 274pp £19.95 order from our bookshop
Everyone seems keen on hangings. Executions are living liturgy. Here is a thorough piece of social history where the ghoulish reader will find nothing to enchant him. The author takes us through the arguments and battles of the abolitionists and retentionists, culminating in the abolition of hanging as the penalty for murder in 1969.
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