The Big House

The complex and fascinating history of what it’s like “doing time” in the “Big House,” and its influence on the American imagination.

“The Big House" is America’s idea of the prison—a huge, tough, ostentatiously oppressive pile of rock, bristling with rules and punishments, overwhelming in size and the intent to intimidate. Stephen Cox tells the story of the American prison—its politics, its sex, its violence, its inability to control itself—and its idealization in American popular culture. This book investigates both the popular images of prison and the realities behind them: problems of control and discipline, maintenance and reform, power and sexuality. It conveys an awareness of the limits of human and institutional power, and of the symbolic and iconic qualities the “Big House” has attained in America’s understanding of itself.

Stephen Cox is Professor of Literature and Director of the Humanities Program at the University of California, San Diego. His most recent books are The New Testament and Literature, The Woman and the Dynamo, and The Titanic Story.