About the Author

I was born and raised near Chicago, though my fascination with British history began early and very personally: my mother was English and I travelled there frequently from childhood onward, later living in London while completing my dissertation.

I received my BA in History from Northern Illinois University in 1992; I received my MA (1994) and PhD (2001) in British history from the University of Maryland, College Park.

I have lived in Germany since completing my doctorate. Between 2005 and the end of 2011 I was a researcher in the Department of History at the Open University (Milton Keynes, UK); I remain a visiting research fellow there. Since January 2011, however, my main affiliation is at the Institute of European History (Mainz, Germany).

Along with The Most Remarkable Woman in England, I am the author of Violence and Crime in Nineteenth-Century England: The Shadow of Our Refinement (London: Routledge, 2004: preview available via Google Books) and have published several articles, essays and reviews on the history of crime, policing, violence and media, including in such peer-reviewed journals as

• Journal of Social History,
• British Journal of Criminology, 
• Twentieth-Century British History,  
• Cultural and Social History,  
• Journal of Victorian Studies,  
• Crime, Histoire & Sociétés/Crime, History and Societies, 
• Literature and History, and  
• Journal for the Study of British Cultures.

A complete list of my publications can be found here.  

I was also academic consultant on the television documentary 'The Violent Highway', directed by Chris Durlacher, which was first broadcast on BBC 2 in May 2009.


If you want to get in touch, please send me an email at jcarterwood@yahoo.com.