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Published as a limited edition in 1936, Miguel Antonio Otero's The Real Billy the Kid: With New Light on the Lincoln County War is a landmark biography of the infamous Western outlaw otherwise known as William H. Bonney, Jr.-his brief childhood, gunfights, encounters with the Apache Indians, entanglement in the murderous feud known as the Lincoln County War, and finally his friendship with the man who ultimately killed him, Sheriff Pat Garrett. Otero knew his subject at first-hand: I liked The Kid very much. . . nothing would have pleased me more than to have witnessed his escape. Much of his account is based on personal interviews with involved parties. Interweaving documentary techniques, ethnography, and elements of autobiography, Otero's study paints a complex landscape of Southwestern politics and culture after the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It is the first narrative to depict the outlaw's cultural and political relationship with Mexican Americans, to whom he was the mythic hero Bilito. In a detailed critical introduction, John-Michael Rivera argues that Otero's account undermines the standard Euro-American image of Billy the Kid and thereby subversively questions the rhetoric of Manifest Destiny that swept across the United States during the late nineteenth century.

A.J. Pollard takes us back to the earliest surviving stories, tales and ballads of Robin Hood, and re-examines the story of this fascinating figure. Setting out the economic, social and political context of the time, Pollard illuminates the legend of this yeoman hero and champion of justice as never before. Imagining Robin Hood questions: what a 'yeoman' was, and what it meant to be a fifteenth-century Englishman Was Robin Hood hunted as an outlaw, or respected as an officially appointed forest ranger? Why do we ignore the fact that this celebrated hero led a life of crime? Did he actually steal from the rich and give to the poor? Answering these questions, the book looks at how Robin Hood was 'all things to all men' since he first appeared; speaking to the gentry, the peasants and all those in between. The story of the freedom-loving outlaw tells us much about the English nation, but tracing back to the first stories reveals even more about the society in which the legend arose. An enthralling read for all historians and general readers of this fascinating subject.

Here is the biography of the most infamous bandit in the history of the West, for decades a source of fear and legend in the newly founded state of California. To both Mexicans and Indians, Murrieta became a symbol of resistance to the displacement and oppression visited on them in the wake of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), particularly by the Forty-Niners who flooded into the region during the California gold rush.In his introduction, literary critic Luis Leal has researched and written the first definitive history of the Murrieta legend in its various incarnations. The Ireneo Paz biography was first published in Mexico City in 1904; it was subsequently translated into English by Frances P. Belle in 1925. This edition includes several line-drawings that appeared in the original publication, adding to the strong sense evoked here of this turbulent period in U.S. history.

Here is the dime-novel-esque biography of the most infamous bandit in the history of the West, for decades a source of fear and legend in the newly founded state of California. To both Mexicans and Indians, Murrieta became a symbol of resistance to the displacement and oppression visited on them in the wake of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), particularly by the Forty-Niners who flooded into the region during the California gold rush.In his introduction, literary critic Luis Leal has researched and written the first definitive history of the Murrieta legend in its various incarnations. The Ireneo Paz biography was first published in Mexico City in 1904; it was subsequently translated into English by Frances P. Belle in 1925. This edition, entirely in Spanish, includes several line drawings that appeared in the original publication, adding to the strong sense evoked here of this turbulent period in U.S. history.

In the early modern period, both legal and illegal maritime predation was a common occurrence, but the expansion of European maritime empires exacerbated existing and created new problems of piracy across the globe. This collection of original case studies addresses these early modern problems in three sections: first, states' attempts to exercise jurisdiction over seafarers and their actions; second, the multiple predatory marine practices considered 'piracy'; and finally, the many representations made about piracy by states or the seafarers themselves. Across nine chapters covering regions including southeast Asia, the Atlantic archipelago, the North African states, and the Caribbean Sea, the complexities of defining and criminalizing maritime predation is explored, raising questions surrounding subjecthood, interpolity law, and the impacts of colonization on the legal and social construction of ocean, port, and coastal spaces. Seeking the meanings and motivations behind piracy, this book reveals that while European states attempted to fashion piracy into a global and homogenous phenomenon, it was largely a local and often idiosyncratic issue.

Bandits seem ubiquitous in Latin American culture. Even contemporary actors of violence are framed by narratives that harken back to old images of the rural bandit, either to legitimize or delegitimize violence, or to intervene in larger conflicts within or between nation-states.However, the bandit escapes a straightforward definition, since the same label can apply to the leader of thousands of soldiers (as in the case of Villa) or to the humble highwayman eking out a meager living by waylaying travelers at machete point. Dabove presents the reader not with a definition of the bandit, but with a series of case studies showing how the bandit trope was used in fictional and non-fictional narratives by writers and political leaders, from the Mexican Revolution to the present. By examining cases from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela, from Pancho Villa's autobiography to Hugo Chávez's appropriation of his \"outlaw\" grandfather, Dabove reveals how bandits function as a symbol to expose the dilemmas or aspirations of cultural and political practices, including literature as a social practice and as an ethical experience.

The author of I, Claudius tells the tale of a notorious nineteenth-century poisoner: \"A must for true-crime addicts\" (Kirkus Reviews). A self-confessed forger, cheat, thief, and petty criminal, William Palmer was also a surgeon and a racehorse owner during the Victorian era who doped horses, fixed races, philandered unapologetically, and generally behaved as an all-around rogue. But the crime for which he was condemned was altogether more serious: poisoning numerous members of his family as well as a close friend. Based on the historic trial of a man characterized as a sociopath and a serial killer, Robert Graves tells the story of a man who was deeply flawed but ultimately not beyond redemption. They Hanged My Saintly Billy is brimming with humor, emotion, and social commentary. Told through the eyes of both friends and enemies, Palmer comes to life as a not-unsympathetic antihero.

ObjectivesApproaches to the study of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs OMCGs tend to focus on offending at the individual level, with limited focus on the nature and extent of co-offending among these affiliates. We aim to examine co-offending by using relational hyper event models (RHEM) to determine what additional insights can be discerned on co-offending above and beyond more traditional network approaches.MethodsUsing de-identified police recorded incident data for affiliates of OMCGs in New South Wales, Australia, including their rank and club affiliation, we examined the positioning of OMCG affiliates in co-offending network structures. The data comprised 2,364 nodes and 12,564 arrest events. We argue that Relational Hyperevent Models (RHEM) are the optimal analytical strategy for co-offending data as it overcomes some of the limitations of traditional co-offending analyses.ResultsWe conducted RHEM modelling and found that co-offending networks were stable over time, whereby actors tended to repeatedly co-offend with the same partners. Lower ranked members were more likely to engage in co-offending compared with office bearers.ConclusionsResults provide some support for the scenario in which OMCGs operate as criminal organisations, but also the protection and distance from offending that is afforded to office bearers. We review implications of the results for law enforcement policy and practice and for the scholarship of OMCGs.

With some notable exceptions, the subject of outlawry in medieval and early-modern English history has attracted relatively little scholarly attention. This volume helps to address this significant gap in scholarship, and encourage further study of the subject, by presenting a series of new studies, based on original research, that address significant features of outlawry and criminality over an extensive period of time. The volume casts important light on, and raises provocative questions about, the definition, ambiguity, variety, causes, function, adaptability, impact and representation of outlawry during this period. It also helps to illuminate social and governmental attitudes and responses to outlawry and criminality, which involved the interests of both church and state. From different perspectives, the contributions to the volume address the complex relationships between outlaws, the societies in which they lived, the law and secular and ecclesiastical authorities, and, in doing so, reveal much about the strengths and limitations of the developing state in England. In terms of its breadth and the compelling interest of its subject matter, the volume will appeal to a wide audience of social, legal, political and cultural historians.

Belle Starr \"has been considered one of the few female outlaws in the United States. According to legends, she became a robber and horse and cattle thief in the Southwest and was known as the Bandit Queen. She married and lived with outlaws. However, most stories about her probably are not true.\" (World Book Student) Read more about Belle Starr.