HOLIDAY SALE! Through December 31, use code PENN-HOLIDAY25 to save 40% on available titles!

(Please note that the three-volume set of Greater Philadelphia is excluded, although the individual volumes are eligible for the discount.)

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Category: Anthropology

Traitors–Now Available

Traitors: Suspicion, Intimacy, and the Ethics of State-Building Edited by Sharika Thiranagama and Tobias Kelly 280 pages | 6 x 9 | 8 illus. Cloth Nov 2009 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4213-3… READ MORE

The Anatomy Murders Corpse of the Day–Dr. Robert Knox

Many ironies surround the life and body of Robert Knox. Unlike the 16 people who William Burke and William Hare murdered and sold to anatomist Robert Knox for use in his teaching facilities, Knox died of natural causes. Knox’s corpse was buried in tact in 1862, over 30 years after he and his underlings had dismembered and pickled the victims of Burke and Hare.

Historian Lisa Rosner writes, “Robert Knox has been an enigma since his purchase of Burke’s and Hare’s cadavers was first made public.” How could a man of medicine be involved in a series of cold-blooded killings? How could a brilliant scientist fail to notice or suspect that the remarkably fresh bodies on his dissection table had been the victims of foul play? Was Knox, “the boy who buys the beef,” a villain or a fool? History rarely gives simple either-or answers to these questions.