The Criminal Crowd and Other Writings on Mass Society

The Criminal Crowd and Other Writings on Mass Society is the first English collection of writings by Italian jurist, sociologist, cultural and literary critic Scipio Sighele. It was edited by Nicoletta Pireddu, translated by Nicoletta Pireddu and Andrew Robbins, with an introduction and notes by Nicoletta Pireddu, and a foreword by Tom Huhn.

Sighele was an important figure in providing post-unification Italy with a new outlook on issues ranging from the blurring line between individual and collective accountability, the role of urbanization in the development of criminality, and the emancipation of women. Pireddu contextualizes Sighele’s contribution to the so-called ‘age-of crowds,’ from the fierce polemic with his French rivals Gustave LeBon and Gabriel Tarde, to the scientific, literary, and cultural developments of his conceptualization of mass behaviours as a legitimate object of psychological investigation into a new century.