John Hostettler has written various legal and historical works. He was a solicitor for 35 years including re political and civil liberties cases. His other books include: Dissenters, Radicals and Blasphemers: The Flame of Revolt that Shines Through English History (2012); Champions of the Rule of Law (2011); Sir William Garrow: His Life Times and Fight for Justice (2010) (with Richard Braby) and Twenty Famous Lawyers (2013).

(From the reviews of the first edition).'This splendid book...reveals in all its starkness the close connexion between the inhumanities of punishment and the political interests of the State'-Justice of the Peace; 'Starts with a delightful description of Anglo-Saxon criminal law and punishment, and travels fast forwards...A colourful entertainment'-Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health; 'Well researched, knowledgeable...a good read'-Litigation; 'First class reading'-Police Journal; 'Takes us on a breathless tour d'horizon of the history of judicial punishment, a thousand years in a hundred pages, before slowing down to examine more closely the reforms of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries'-The Magistrate.

• About the author; Dedication; Acknowledgements; Preface; Abbreviations; 1. Anglo-Saxon England; 2. Saxon Dooms - Our Early Laws; 3. New Ventures in the Criminal Law; 4. Royal Power; 5. The Commonwealth; 6. The Restoration; 7. Glorious Revolution to Repression; 8. Towards a Modern Society; 9. Century of Reform; 10. Criminal Incapacity; 11. A Century of Improvement; 12. The Politics of Punishment. Bibliography. Index.