Eric Hobsbawm sets out to explore and analyze the history of banditry and organized crime and its relationship to class structures of agrarian societies.

Hobsbawm specifies a specific form of crime that fit into the category of social bandit, which represented groups of young men, landless peasants, free-men, and military deserters.

Social bandits are distinguished from other forms of organized crime in how the majority peasantry perceived the bandits as rebels who opposed the unjust system of feudalism.

Among social bandits there are three main historical categories: that of "The Noble Robbers", "The Avengers", and the "haiduks".

The Noble Robbers are the romanticized concept of noble criminals who fight injustice and have a large popularity with the lower classes; key figures include Robin Hood, Diego Corrientes Mateos and Juro Janosik.