Sarah Wilson, The Origins of Modern Financial Crime: Historical Foundations and Current Problems in Britain

Authors

Aneta Spaic, University of Montenegro, Montenegro
Claire Angelique Nolasco, Texas A&M-San Antonio

Abstract

"This book traces the roots of financial crime to the Victorian Era roughly between the years 1840-1880. Wilson situates financial crime within the context of the concerns, perceptions, developments, and issues endemic to that period. She attempts to draw the reader to the realities of this particular Victorian era as it was unfolding and explains how financial misconduct within commerce became rampant as construction of the railways spurred the growth of industrialization. The book contributes to existing literature on financial crime by providing a historical analysis of its etymology and creating awareness of its historical origins and prevalence long before the twentieth century. The author’s insights on business misconduct show how, contrary to current perceptions of financial crime as a modern crime facilitated by rapid developments in technology, this type of criminal activity occurred long before the modern era. She also argues that current scholarly focus on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries when analyzing financial crimes discounts how history has contributed to the way it is currently perceived and enforced."

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Spaic, Aneta and Nolasco, Claire Angelique (2014) "Sarah Wilson, The Origins of Modern Financial Crime: Historical Foundations and Current Problems in Britain," Qualitative Criminology (QC): Vol. 2: No. 2, Article 10.
Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/qc/vol2/iss2/10