Book Review: The Birth of American Law: An Italian Philosopher and the American Revolution, John Bessler, 2014

51-1 Criminal Law Bulletin 257 (2015) Thomson Reuters

5 Pages Posted: 23 Feb 2015

Date Written: February 22, 2015

Abstract

Author and Law Professor John Bessler is well recognized as a scholar of the legal and criminological history of the modern death penalty, the waning of non-lethal corporal punishment and the development of criminal codes. His new book, "The Birth of American Law: An Italian Philosopher and the American Revolution", builds on this scholarship by providing a full cultural, intellectual and political history of the roots, the budding shoots and the branches that developed, through evolving standards, into the United States criminal justice and corrections systems. The sea change that a fledgling American democracy effectuated by turning academic political theory into nationhood makes this intellectual history highly valuable in its retelling, as well as for the new historical research and original sources. "The Birth of American Law" also expressly discusses the development of twenty-first century contemporary political and legal issues such as incarceration, theories of punishment, future of the death penalty and the meaning of the evolving standard of decency principle of cruel and unusual punishment.

Keywords: death penalty, punishment theory, constitutional history

Suggested Citation

Jochnowitz (Libby), Leona Deborah, Book Review: The Birth of American Law: An Italian Philosopher and the American Revolution, John Bessler, 2014 (February 22, 2015). 51-1 Criminal Law Bulletin 257 (2015) Thomson Reuters , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2568440

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