Don’t be fooled by the podcast boom; true crime has been a popular money-making genre for hundreds of years. It started in the 1600s in London, and perhaps peaked in 1888, when five women were killed by Jack the Ripper. Their deaths were so sensationalized that myths persist about them to this day.
Alternative Histories
Moving beyond the sensationalism of the true crime genre is important not just from an ethical standpoint, but because it can tell us so much about the world. This is especially true of historical crimes, which reveal so much about the social issues of their time. Our latest Instaread, The Five, delves into the lives of the Ripper’s five victims to present a compassionate and historically grounded account that you won’t want to miss.
