Robb, George 1964–

PERSONAL:

Born February 14, 1964. Education: Northwestern University, Ph.D., 1990.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, William Paterson University, 300 Pompton Rd., Wayne, NJ 07470. E-mail—RobbG@wpunj.edu.

CAREER:

Writer, educator. William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ, associate professor of history. Has also taught at St. Bonaventure University.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fulbright research fellowship, 1987-88; American Council of Learned Societies grant, 1994; Mellon research fellowship, 1996.

WRITINGS:

White-Collar Crime in Modern England: Financial Fraud and Business Morality, 1845-1929, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1992.

(Editor, with Nancy Erber) Disorder in the Court: Trials and Sexual Conflict at the Turn of the Century, New York University Press (New York, NY), 1999.

British Culture and the First World War, Palgrave (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

In White-Collar Crime in Modern England: Financial Fraud and Business Morality, 1845-1929, George Robb offers a history of business ethics during the Victorian era. The author shows how a permissive system of corporate liability, lax accounting and auditing measures, and minimal legislative action contributed to financial deceit on a large scale. In the work, wrote Business History Review contributor Geoffrey Channon, Robb "argues that the transgressions of the middle-class bankers, brokers, and company directors and managers dwarfed the thefts of the Victorian underworld that dominate popular and historical images and accounts of criminality." "Written with great clarity and style," remarked Business History reviewer W.A. Thomas, White-Collar Crime in Modern England "deals with the developments which offered such scope for financial misdemeanour, it provides a shameful catalogue of fraud and embezzlers, some more sinister than others, and it concludes with the measures introduced somewhat slowly towards the end of the Victorian era to place some legal and professional deterrents in the path of the intending white-collar criminal."

In British Culture and the First World War, Robb examines the impact of modern warfare on British customs, beliefs, and ideologies. "The author's exhaustive reading of fiction and ephemera gives a good deal of cultural history content," noted Albion critic Adrian Gregory, who also faulted Robb for failing to provide a satisfactory conclusion. "Although the author clearly has considered opinions on all sorts of issues," Gregory stated, "there is little sense of what he thinks about how, if at all, the experience of war changed British culture between the Edwardian age and the inter-war period." Donald Lammers, writing in History: Review of New Books, offered a more positive assessment of the work, commenting, "Intelligently conceived and nicely executed, it offers the nonspecialist reader a panoramic view of the British experience of the Great War," and adding, "The book's core chapters deal richly and cogently with the war's detectable effects on the institutions and associated behaviors and attitudes of British society in the early decades of the last century."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Albion, winter, 2004, Adrian Gregory, review of British Culture and the First World War, p. 701.

American Historical Review, February, 1994, H.L. Malchow, review of White-Collar Crime in Modern England: Financial Fraud and Business Morality, 1845-1929, p. 231; December, 2000, Angus McLaren, review of Disorder in the Court: Trials and Sexual Conflict at the Turn of the Century, p. 1706.

Business History, October, 1993, W.A. Thomas, review of White-Collar Crime in Modern England, p. 210.

Business History Review, winter, 1993, Geoffrey Channon, review of White-Collar Crime in Modern England, p. 693.

Choice, June, 1993, L.J. Satre, review of White-Collar Crime in Modern England, p. 1688; April, 2003, H.L. Smith, review of British Culture and the First World War, p. 1432.

Economic History Review, February, 1994, Charles W. Munn, review of White-Collar Crime in Modern England, p. 199.

English Historical Review, April, 2004, Arthur Marwick, review of British Culture and the First World War, p. 557.

History: Review of New Books, fall, 2002, Donald Lammers, review of British Culture and the First World War, p. 18.

History: The Journal of the Historical Association, October, 1994, J.H. Porter, review of White-Collar Crime in Modern England, p. 520.

International Journal of Comparative Sociology, June, 1995, Gilbert Geis, review of White-Collar Crime in Modern England, p. 105.

International Journal of the Sociology of Law, March, 1993, George Gilligan, review of White-Collar Crime in Modern England, p. 95.

Journal of Modern History, June, 2001, Gabriel N. Finder, review of Disorder in the Court, p. 401.

Journal of Social History, summer, 1994, Harold Perkin, review of White-Collar Crime in Modern England, p. 870.

Labor History, spring, 1994, Joseph Melling, review of White-Collar Crime in Modern England, p. 282.

Women's History Review, fall, 2000, Lesley A. Hall, review of Disorder in the Court, p. 641.

ONLINE

William Paterson University Web site,http://www.wpunj.edu/ (May 10, 2008), biography of George Robb.