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Podcast: New Books in German Studies
Episode: Joy Wiltenburg, “Crime & Culture in Early Modern Germany” (University of Virginia Press, 2012)
Description: Many people complain about sensationalism in the press. If a man slaughters his entire family, a jilted lover kills her erstwhile boyfriend, or a high school student murders several of his classmates, it’s going to be “all over the news.” But it’s hard to blame the press, exclusively at least. Joy Wiltenburg‘s Crime & Culture in Early Modern Germany (University of Virginia Press, 2012) suggests (to me at least), that those who criticize the press for sensationalism have cause and effect reversed: the press doesn’t cause demand for sensational stories, the people who buy the press do. When the “pr...