University of Mississippi professor Eva Payne in conversation with fellow academic Tess Lefmann for Empire of Purity: The History of Americans’ Global War on Prostitution
How the US crusade against prostitution became a tool of empire
About the book
“The United States has imposed many things on the world. One of them, Eva Payne shows in this sharp, revealing book, was its sexual morality. Empire of Purity tells the eye-opening story of how the United States tried to eradicate sex work—and turn large numbers of women into criminals—on a global scale.”—Daniel Immerwahr, author of How to Hide an Empire Between the 1870s and 1930s, American social reformers, working closely with the US government, transformed sexual vice into an international political and humanitarian concern. As these activists worked to eradicate prostitution and trafficking, they promoted sexual self-control for both men and women as a cornerstone of civilization and a basis of American exceptionalism. Empire of Purity traces the history of these efforts, showing how the policing and penalization of sexuality was used to justify American interventions around the world.
Drawing on archives in Europe, the United States, and Latin America, Empire of Purity ties the war on sexual vice to American imperial ambitions and a politicization of sexuality that continues to govern both domestic and international policy today.
About the author
Eva Payne is assistant professor of history at the University of Mississippi. Her writing has appeared in publications, such as the Journal of Women’s History and Radical History Review.
About the conversation partner
Tess Lefmann is an associate professor of social work at the University of Mississippi.
Empire of Purity
By Eva Payne
$35.00
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691256979
Contact: Maria Whelan
