Against the Death Penalty: Writings from the First Abolitionists—Giuseppe Pelli and Cesare Beccaria

Author:   Cesare Beccaria ,  Giuseppie Pelli ,  Peter Garnsey ,  Cesare Beccaria
Publisher:   Princeton University Press
ISBN:  

9780691209883


Pages:   232
Publication Date:   10 November 2020
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
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Against the Death Penalty: Writings from the First Abolitionists—Giuseppe Pelli and Cesare Beccaria


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The first known abolitionist critique of the death penalty-here for the first time in EnglishIn 1764, a Milanese aristocrat named Cesare Beccaria created a sensation when he published On Crimes and Punishments. At its centre is a rejection of the death penalty as excessive, unnecessary, and pointless. Beccaria is deservedly regarded as the founding father of modern criminal-law reform, yet he was not the first to argue for the abolition of the death penalty. Against the Death Penalty presents the first English translation of the Florentine aristocrat Giuseppe Pelli's critique of capital punishment, written three years before Beccaria's treatise, but lost for more than two centuries in the Pelli family archives.Peter Garnsey examines the contrasting arguments of the two abolitionists, who drew from different intellectual traditions. Pelli was a devout Catholic influenced by the writings of natural jurists such as Hugo Grotius, whereas Beccaria was inspired by the French Enlightenment philosophers. While Beccaria attacked the criminal justice system as a whole, Pelli focussed on the death penalty, composing a critique of considerable depth and sophistication. Garnsey explores how Beccaria's alternative penalty of forced labour, and its conceptualization as servitude, were embraced in Britain and America, and delves into Pelli's voluminous diaries, shedding light on Pelli's intellectual development and painting a vivid portrait of an Enlightenment man of letters and of conscience.With translations of letters exchanged by the two abolitionists and selections from Beccaria's writings, Against the Death Penalty provides new insights into eighteenth-century debates about capital punishment and offers vital historical perspectives on one of the most pressing questions of our own time.

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Author:   Cesare Beccaria ,  Giuseppie Pelli ,  Peter Garnsey ,  Cesare Beccaria
Publisher:   Princeton University Press
Imprint:   Princeton University Press
ISBN:  

9780691209883


ISBN 10:   069120988
Pages:   232
Publication Date:   10 November 2020
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General/trade ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

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Peter Garnsey is emeritus professor of the history of classical antiquity at the University of Cambridge and emeritus fellow of Jesus College. His recent books include Thinking about Property: From Antiquity to the Age of Revolution and, with Richard Saller, The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture.

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