Cops and Bobbies

Police Authority in New York and London, 1830–1870
Second Edition

Wilbur R. Miller

“Historians on both sides of the Atlantic have studied the early years of these two police forces before. Few if any, however, have attempted to synthesize the existing material to discover why two societies, so much alike, produced two models of police authority, so strikingly different. Miller has done this job lucidly and with great skill.” —Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science

First printed in 1977, Cops and Bobbies has become “one of the two or three consensus classics in the history of police,” according to Roger Lane, author of Murder in America. In this second edition, Wilbur R. Miller provides a new introduction in which he discusses how police historiography has evolved since the book’s initial publication in response to social change and police developments, particularly in Britain.

Wilbur R. Miller is a professor of history at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.