To help spark further interest and discussion on the topics presented in the History Lecture Series, we have compiled a list of resources for you to enjoy.
2026: Power& Punishment, Histories of Incarceration
This series explores the history of the practice of incarceration from antiquity to the present.
The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society (Oxford University Press, 1995)
This book offers a vivid account of the rise and development of prisons. The authors trace the persistent tension between the desire to punish and the hope for rehabilitation, recounting the institution's evolution from the rowdy and squalid English jails of the 1700s, in which prisoners and visitors ate and drank together; to the sober and stark nineteenth-century penitentiaries, whose inmates were forbidden to speak or even to see one another; and finally to the "big houses" of the current American prison system, in which prisoners are as overwhelmed by intense boredom as by the threat of violence. The text also provides a gripping and personal look at the social world of prisoners and their keepers over the centuries. In addition, thematic chapters explore in-depth a variety of special institutions and other important aspects of prison history, including the jail, the reform school, the women's prison, political imprisonment, and prison and literature.
Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis (Seven Stories Press, 2003)
Amid rising public concern about the proliferation and privatization of prisons, and their promise of enormous profits, Davis argues for the abolition of the prison system as the dominant way of responding to America's social ills. Backed by growing numbers of prisons and prisoners, Davis analyzes these institutions in the U.S., arguing that the very future of democracy depends on our ability to develop radical theories and practices that make it possible to plan and fight for a world beyond the prison industrial complex.
The Prison and the American Imagination by Caleb Smith (Yale University Press, 2009)
How did a nation so famously associated with freedom become internationally identified with imprisonment? In this study, Smith argues that the dehumanization inherent in captivity has always been at the heart of American civil society. Exploring legal, political, and literary texts, he shows how alienation and self-reliance, social death and spiritual rebirth, torture and penitence came together in the prison.
"Prison Abolition Syllabus" developed by Dan Berger, Garret Felber, Kali Gross, Elizabeth Hinton, and Anyabwile Love (Black Perspectives, 2016)
Antiquity
Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration by Mark Letteney and Matthew Larsen (University of California Press, 2025)
This book examines the spaces, practices, and ideologies of incarceration in the ancient Mediterranean world, covering the period from 300 BCE to 600 CE. By analyzing a wide range of sources—including legal texts, archaeological findings, documentary evidence, and visual materials—Larsen and Letteney argue that prisons were integral to the social, political, and economic fabric of ancient societies. The title is Open Access, available for free here.
Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration Database serves as a companion to Letteney and Larsen's book and serves as a repository for evidence for ideologies and experiences of incarceration in the ancient Mediterranean during the period spanning 300 BCE to 600 CE.
Prisons in Ancient Mesopotamia: Confinement and Control until the First Fall of Babylon by J. Nicholas Reid (Oxford University Press, 2022)
This study explores the earliest historical evidence related to imprisonment in the history of the world. While many historical investigations into prisons have revolved around the important question of punishment, this work moves beyond that more narrow approach to consider the multifunctional practices of detaining the body in ancient Iraq. It reconstructs how imprisonment and religious ideology intersected with the judicial process and explores the evidence related to the reasons behind imprisonment, the treatment of prisoners, and the evidence related to the lengths of their stays.
Medieval
The Medieval Prison: A Social History by G. Geltner (Princeton University Press, 2008)
The modern prison is commonly thought to be the fruit of an Enlightenment penology that stressed man’s ability to reform his soul, this book challenges this view by tracing the institution’s emergence to a much earlier period beginning in the late thirteenth century. Geltner reconstructs life inside the walls of prisons in medieval Venice, Florence, Bologna, and elsewhere in Europe. He argues that many enduring features of the modern prison—including administration, finance, and the classification of inmates—were already developed by the end of the fourteenth century, and that incarceration as a formal punishment was far more widespread in this period than is often realized. The Medieval Prison rewrites penal history and reveals that medieval society did not have a “persecuting mentality” but in fact was more nuanced in defining and dealing with its marginal elements than is commonly recognized.
Captivity and Imprisonment in Medieval Europe, 1000-1300 by Jean Dunbabin (Springer, 2002)
This book explores the growing importance of prisons, both lay and ecclesiastical, in western Europe between 1000 and 1300. It attempts to explain what captors hoped to achieve by restricting the liberty of others, the means of confinement available to them, and why there was an increasingly close link between captivity and suspected criminal activity. It discusses conditions within prisons, the means of release open to some captives, and writing in or about prison.
Imprisonment in Medieval England by Ralph Pugh (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
This study traces the subject to the reign of Henry VIII. Pugh describes the location and analyses the types of prison buildings: county gaols, 'national' prisons (like the Fleet), franchise, municipal, 'bishops' and forest prisons. He also deals with the administration, staffing, repair and appearance of these buildings. Professor Pugh emphasizes that imprisonment was widely used as a punishment and was not wholly custodial and coercive; that the treatment of prisoners, if callous, was not intentionally cruel; and that the exaction of fees and lodging charges was not an 'abuse' but came to be the only way in which imprisonment could be made to work.
From England to France: Felony and Exile in the High Middle Ages by William Chester Jordan (Princeton University Press, 2015)
A peculiar system of perpetual exile—or abjuration—flourished in western Europe during the height of the Middle Ages. It was a judicial form of exile, not political or religious, and it was meted out to felons for crimes deserving of severe corporal punishment or death. From England to France explores the lives of these men and women who were condemned to abjure the English realm and draws on their unique experiences to shed light on a medieval legal tradition until now very poorly understood.
Imprisoning Medieval Women: The Non-Judicial Confinement and Abduction of Women in England c. 1170-1509 by Gwen Seabourne (Taylor and Francis, 2016)
The non-judicial confinement of women is a common event in medieval European literature—picture the archetype of the 'maiden in the tower' as seen in folk tales and literature. Yet the confinement of women outside of the judicial system was not fiction but a reality. Evidence suggests important differences in the circumstances under which men and women were incarcerated, and in their roles in relation to non-judicial captivity. This study of the confinement of women highlights the disparity in regulation concerning male and female imprisonment in the Middle Ages and gives a useful perspective on the nature of medieval law, its scope and limitations, and its interaction with royal power and prerogative. Looking at England from 1170 to 1509, the book discusses: the situations in which women might be imprisoned without formal accusation of trial; how social status, national allegiance and stage of life affected the chances of imprisonment; the relevant legal rules and norms; the extent to which legal and constitutional developments in medieval England affected women's amenability to confinement; what can be known of the experiences of women so incarcerated; and how women were involved in situations of non-judicial imprisonment, aside from themselves being prisoners.
Sanctuary and Crime in the Middle Ages, 400-1500 by Karl Shoemaker (Fordham University Press, 2011)
Until the sixteenth century, every major medieval legal tradition afforded protection to fugitive criminals who took sanctuary in churches. Sanctuary-seeking criminals might have been required to perform penance or go into exile, but they were guaranteed, at least in principle, immunity from corporal and capital punishment. In the sixteenth century, sanctuary protections were abolished throughout Europe, uprooting an ancient tradition and raising a new set of juridical arguments about law, crime and the power to punish. In this book, Schoemaker integrates the history of sanctuary law with the history of criminal law in medieval Europe.
Experiences of Poverty in Late Medieval and Early Modern England and France edited by Anne M. Scott (Ashgate, 2012)
This book explores the range of poverty experiences (socioeconomic, moral, and spiritual) in the medieval and early modern periods. Poverty was not a simple phenomenon and it varied based on gender, age, and location. The researchers who contributed to this book explore the assumptions and strategies of those in power in dealing with poverty and the ways in which the poor themselves tried to contribute to, avoid, or challenge the systems for dealing with their situation.
Japanese Internment
Judgment Without Trial: Japanese American Imprisonment During World War II by Tetsuden Kashima (University of Washington Press, 2004)
Judgment without Trial reveals that long before the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government began making plans for the eventual internment and later incarceration of the Japanese American population. Kashima uses newly obtained records to trace this process back to the 1920s, when a nascent imprisonment organization was developed to prepare for a possible war with Japan, and follows it in detail through the war years. Along with coverage of the well-known incarceration camps, the author discusses the less familiar and very different experiences of people of Japanese descent in the Justice and War Departments’ internment camps that held internees from the continental U.S. and from Alaska, Hawaii, and Latin America.
Imprisoned: The Betrayal of Japanese Americans during World War II by Martin W. Sandler (Bloomsbury, 2020)
While Americans fought for freedom and democracy abroad, fear and suspicion towards Japanese Americans swept the country after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Culling information from extensive, previously unpublished interviews and oral histories with Japanese American survivors of internment camps, Sandler gives an in-depth account of their lives before, during their imprisonment, and after their release. Bringing readers inside life in the internment camps and explaining how a country that is built on the ideals of freedom for all could have such a dark mark on its history, this in-depth look at a troubling period of American history sheds light on the prejudices in today's world and provides the historical context we need to prevent similar abuses of power.
2025: River Histories
This series explores the intertwining of human and ecological history through some of the most monumental and important rivers.
The Nile
Nile: River of the Gods (Discovery Channel, 1992-95)
This documentary explores the Nile, its history, and its wildlife. It is a voyage through time from the pharaohs to the present.
Rivers of Life: The Nile (PBS, 2021)
The first episode in PBS’s Rivers of Life series examines the wildlife and people of the world’s longest river, the Nile.
100 Hieroglyphs: Think like an Egyptian, Barry Kemp (Penguin, 2005)
Egyptologist, Barry Kemp, takes readers on a journey through the Egyptian mind. Through the scope of hieroglyphs, Kemp examines day-to-day life in ancient Egypt and builds a picture of the historical and mythological references that were the cornerstone of Egyptian thought.
"What Crocodile Mummies Tell Us about Life, Death, and Taxes Thousands of Years Ago" (History Unplugged; June 10, 2021)
This episode of the History Unplugged podcast takes a look at the 1899 discovery of crocodile mummies in Northern Egypt and the invaluable knowledge they contained about daily life in ancient Egypt.
Rivers of Power: How a Natural Force Raised Kingdoms, Destroyed Civilizations, and Shapes Our World, Laurence C. Smith (Little, Brown, Spark, 2020)
Geographer Laurence C. Smith explores the relationship between rivers and civilization and their profound importance to our past and future.
The Ganges
Holy (un)Holy River (Mountainworld Productions, 2016)
Living River (Vinit Parmar, 2015)
The Ganges in Myth and History, Steven G. Darian (Motilal Banarsidass, 2010)
Darian writes of the human experience and legendary myths surrounding the Ganges.
Ganges: The Many Pasts of an Indian River, Sudipta Sen (Yale, 2018)
Sen chronicles the geography, politics, religious history, and people that have shaped the identity and ecology of one of the world’s largest and most densely populated river basins.
The Rio Grande
A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico, Amy S. Greenberg (Knopf, 2012)
The author tells the story of an often overlooked war, the U.S.-Mexican War, that featured false starts, atrocities, and daring back-channel negotiations that divided the nation, paved the way for the Civil War, and launched the career of Abraham Lincoln.
The U.S. War with Mexico: A Brief History with Documents, Ernesto Chávez (Bedford/St. Martins, 2007)
Through popular and official documents, Chávez explores the events and politics leading up to the U.S.-Mexico War and its long-term impact on both nations.
Habsburgs on the Rio Grande: The Rise and Fall of the Second Mexican Empire, Raymond Jonas (Harvard University Press, 2024)
This book tells the story of how nineteenth-century European rulers conspired with Mexican conservatives in a plan to control the rising U.S. colossus by establishing an Old World empire on its doorstep.
The Columbia
The Organic Machine: Remaking of the Columbia River, Richard White (Hill and Wang, 1995)
This work explores the relationship between the natural history of the Columbia River and the human history of the Pacific Northwest.
“The Changing Experience of Nature: Historical Encounters with a Northwest River”, Linda Nash (Journal of American History, Vol. 86.4)
Nash investigates the changing experience of nature along the Skagit River in western Washington.
Strong Winds and Widow Makers: Workers, Nature, and Environmental Conflict in Pacific Northwest Timber Country, Steven Beda (University of Illinois Press, 2022)
This work explores the complex relationship between timber communities and the health and future of the lands surrounding them.
The Code: Silicon Valley and the remaking of America, Margaret O'Mara (Penguin Press, 2019)