Feuding, Conflict and Banditry in Nineteenth-Century Corsica - Softcover

Wilson, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521522641 ISBN 13: 9780521522649

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2003

Synopsis

Corsica is associated in many people's minds with vendetta and banditry, but these phenomena have not been studied systematically. Using accounts by visitors and officials and particularly judicial records, this book provides such a study for the nineteenth century. Accounts of specific feuds lasting over many generations are given, including that which inspired Mérimée's Colomba, and the whole phenomenon is set in its proper context of competition for scarce material resources and power in a traditional agro-pastoral society. Attitudes to death and the dead are examined, and reveal a divergence between local practice and belief and official Christianity, and the persistence of the notion that the spirit of the slain requires to be placated with blood. A general theme is the impact upon an isolated traditional society, and its system of sanctions, of incorporation into a modern state with courts and police.

About this title

Book Description:

Corsica is associated in many people's minds with vendetta and banditry, but these phenomena have not been studied systematically. Using accounts by visitors and officials and particularly judicial records, this book provides such a study for the nineteenth century.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0521522641
• ISBN 13: 9780521522649
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 576