Description
Book SynopsisThrough an analysis of criminal case files, administrative records, and prisoner biographies, this book reconstructs life in the penal colonies and examines how the social sciences, tropical medicine, and sensational journalism evaluated and exploited the inmates' experiences.
Trade Review"An engaging and well-researched account of the 100-year histories of the penal colonies of French Guiana and New Caledonia... Beyond Papillon makes important contributions to the histories of colonization and crime and punishment... The very idea of creating overseas penal colonies presents us with troubling questions about how societies deal with offenders against the social order, and Toth's discussion provides historical perspectives on important contemporary debates."-Deborah Neill, Itinerario Itinerario
Table of ContentsIntroduction1. Back to the Future: France and Penal Colonization; 2. The Desire to Deport: The Recidivist of Fin de Siecle France; 3. Life in the Penal Colony: The View from Above and Below; 4. The Lords of Discipline: The French Penal Colony Service; 5. The Battle over the Bagnard: Tropical Medicine in the Bagne; 6. The Not-So-Fatal Shore: The Criminological Conception of the Fin de Siecle Bagne; 7. The Bagne Obscura: Representational Crisis and the Twentieth CenturyConclusion
