BiblioVault - Books about Rope

Necessary Evil

Settling Missouri with a Rope and a Gun

Joe Johnston

Missouri Historical Society Press, 2014

From the Mormon Wars to the Border Wars to gangs of Bald Knobbers and Bushwhackers, Missouri’s reign of vigilante justice during the nineteenth century is unparalleled by any other state in the nation. Situated as the Gateway to the West, Missouri experienced an influx of new cultures, races, and political factions, while already home to a population of patriotic war veterans. The state marked the boundary of eastern civilization and was a stronghold of fierce independence, bordered by Bloody Kansas and Native American territories. With new lands opening for settlement, and a fledgling system of law enforcement, the people themselves were compelled to invent laws and punish transgressors. Lawmen opposed vigilantes but at times were forced to cooperate with them and adopt their methods. Missouri spawned countless stories of individual and mob violence that finally ended at the turn of the century with advancing technology and the people’s enduring insistence on decency and peace.

Necessary Evil is the first book to chronicle the implications of vigilantism in Missouri, ultimately showing that the state could never have been settled without a healthy dose of rebel justice. Packed with stories of popular gunslingers such as Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, and Jesse James, this action-filled read will be of interest to crime enthusiasts and historians alike.

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On the Rope

A Hero's Story

Erich Hackl

Haus Publishing, 2020

As German Jews, Regina Steinig and her daughter Lucia are forced into hiding during the Second World War. Finding refuge in the workshop of a local beltmaker, they hold on to each other as they live in constant fear of discovery by his neighbors and customers. When their hideaway is damaged in an air raid in the closing months of the war, the women are forced on the run and are locked in a desperate battle for survival.

Based on a true story, On the Rope is an account of extreme courage in the face of danger, violence, and hatred. Exploring themes of displacement and survival, friendship and family, it ends with the women’s efforts to bring recognition the selfless heroism of those who faced tremendous personal risk in order to protect them. A novella by one of Europe’s most prominent literary novelists, On the Rope layers deeply personal stories in a grounded historical account of life before, during, and after the Second World War. It paints a vivid picture of the hardships forced upon people by conflict and separation, depicting the forming and unravelling of relationships as a fact of life.

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The Rope of God

James T. Siegel

University of Michigan Press, 2000

The Acehnese, a Muslim people of Sumatra, fought Dutch attempts to colonize them for forty years. After its "pacification," Acehnese society evolved peacefully, yet nonetheless the Acehnese participated fully in the Indonesian revolution and in a rebellion against the Indonesian central government not long after. Based on field work done in the early 1960s, James Siegel's The Rope of God, traces the evolution in Islam, in the economy, and in the structure of the family to show how it was that Aceh mobilized itself as a society from the time of the colonial war to the emergence of the republic. At a time when this Indonesian society is once again in movement, this influential study has gained a certain new relevance.
To bridge this span of time since its initial publication in 1969, Siegel has added two additional chapters to his original volume: one a description of political elements today and the other a previously published piece on Acehnese domestic politics.
Important when it first appeared, The Rope of God continues to be of enduring importance today and will be warmly welcomed back into print.
James Siegel is Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies, Cornell University and is the author of New Criminal Type in Jakarta: A Counter-Revolution Today, among other books.

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The Rope, The Chair, and the Needle

Capital Punishment in Texas, 1923-1990

By James W. Marquart, Sheldon Ekland-Olson, and Jonathan R. Sorensen

University of Texas Press, 1998

In late summer 1923, legal hangings in Texas came to an end, and the electric chair replaced the gallows. Of 520 convicted capital offenders sentenced to die between 1923 and 1972, 361 were actually executed, thus maintaining Texas’ traditional reputation as a staunch supporter of capital punishment.

This book is the single most comprehensive examination to date of capital punishment in any one state, drawing on data for legal executions from 1819 to 1990. The authors show persuasively how slavery and the racially biased practice of lynching in Texas led to the institutionalization and public approval of executions skewed according to race, class, and gender, and they also track long-term changes in public opinion up to the present.

The stories of the condemned are masterfully interwoven with fact and interpretation to provide compelling reading for scholars of law, criminal justice, race relations, history, and sociology, as well as partisans on both sides of the debate.

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