The War of the Fists is a study of seventeenth-century worker culture in the city of Venice, focusing on the mock battles, or battagliole, which the town's two popular factions waged on public bridges. These "little battles" were partly festive battle, partly sport, and partly thinly veiled plebeian mayhem: they could involve as many as a thousand fighters on each side and attracted crowds of thirty thousand or more. Their importance in the city's plebeian life makes bridge battles an extremely valuable point of entry for exploring structures of Venetian popular culture, a...

Offering an in-depth synthesis of recent scholarship in the field, this book presents a reconstruction of the Renaissance in Italy as both a social and a gendered experience. Successive chapters explore this theme in the context of work, law, politics, and notion of the state; and as expressed in Renaissance concepts of honour, representational art, medicine and magic, sexual practices, religious organization and spirituality. Introductory and concluding chapters on the historiography of Italian social and gender history draw these specific studies together.

Despite strenuous governmental efforts over the past decade, illicit drug use continues to pose a serious challenge to society and, in particular, inner city communities in the United States. Fighting Back describes the strategies employed by law enforcement agencies and community groups working in partnership to prevent and discourage drug dealing. Offering informed and positive observations, the book includes: a detailed discussion of both theoretical and programmatic issues; the latest empirical research incorporating newly published investigations; and case studies.