An Essay on Crimes and Punishments
'An Essay on Crimes and Punishments ' Summary
On Crimes and Punishments marked the high point of Milan Enlightenment. In it, Beccaria put forth some of the first modern arguments against the death penalty. It was also the first full work of penology, advocating reform of the criminal law system. The book was the first full-scale work to tackle criminal reform and to suggest that criminal justice should conform to rational principles. It is a less theoretical work than the writings of Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf and other comparable thinkers, and as much a work of advocacy as of theory. In this essay, Beccaria reflected the convictions of the Il Caffè group, who sought to cause reform through Enlightenment discourse. In 1765, André Morellet produced a French translation of On Crimes and Punishments. His translation was widely criticized for the liberties he took with the text. Morellet had the opinion that the Italian text of Beccaria did require some clarification. He, therefore, omitted parts and sometimes added to them. But he mainly changed the structure of the essay by moving, merging, or splitting chapters. These interventions were known to experts, but because Beccaria himself had indicated in a letter to Morellet that he fully agreed with him, it was assumed that these adaptations also had Beccaria's consent in substance. The differences are so great, however, that the book from the hands of Morellet became quite another book than the book that Beccaria wrote.
Book Details
Author
Cesare Beccaria
Italian
Cesare Bonesana di Beccaria, Marquis of Gualdrasco and Villareggio was an Italian criminologist, jurist, philosopher, economist and politician, who is widely considered one of the greatest thinkers of...
More on Cesare BeccariaListen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books
Neighbors: Life Stories of the Other Half by Jacob Riis
These stories have come to me from many sources—some from my own experience, others from settlement workers, still others from the records of organize...
Appreciations, with an Essay on Style by Walter Pater
Appreciations, with an Essay on Style, is a collection of Walter Pater's previously-published essays on literature. The collection was well received b...
The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States by Ida B. Wells-Barnett
The Red Record, in 1895, a 100-page pamphlet with more detail, describing lynching in the United States since the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. I...
The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill
The Subjection of Women is an essay by English philosopher, political economist and civil servant John Stuart Mill published in 1869, with ideas he de...
The Awful German Language by Mark Twain
"The Awful German Language" is an 1880 essay by Mark Twain published as Appendix D in A Tramp Abroad. The essay is a humorous exploration of the frust...
This, That, and the Other by Hilaire Belloc
“When Fame comes upon a man well before death then must he most particularly beware of it, for is it then most dangerous. Neither must he, having achi...
The Markenmore Mystery by J. S. Fletcher
After seven years of silence, Guy Markenmore returns to his family home at Markenmore Court. Knowing his father Sir Anthony to be close to death, he i...
The Masquerader by Katherine Cecil Thurston
The Masquerader is a novel by the Irish writer Katherine Cecil Thurston which was first published in 1904. It was the third most popular book in the U...
Americans and Others by Agnes Repplier
A collection of sometimes biting, always clever commentaries on some of life's foibles -- as apt today as when Ms. Repplier wrote them in 1912. Though...
Ukraina and the Peace-conference by Stanislav Dnistriansky
It explores the events that took place during the Peace Conference of Paris in 1919 and the impact it had on Ukraine's struggle for independence. Writ...
Reviews for An Essay on Crimes and Punishments
No reviews posted or approved, yet...