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The Many Faces of Judge Lynch: Extralegal Violence and Punishment in America. By Christopher Waldrep. (New York: Palgrave, 2002. x, 264 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-312-29399-2.)
In the lexicon of American violence, the definition of lynching has evolved over time, a point Christopher Waldrep makes abundantly clear in this important study. Less concerned with the social motivations or collective behavior of the mob, Waldrep sets as his interest "a history of how the people who championed their cause, or fought against it, manipulated the meaning of lynching" (p. 4) in public discourse about collective violence. This problem of language and nomenclature is at the heart of The Many Faces of Judge Lynch.
Through eight chapters that follow a loose chronological thread, Waldrep recounts the origin and transformation of lynching...