Rethinking Capital Punishment

Peter Garnsey is Emeritus Professor of the History of Classical Antiquity at the University of Cambridge. He has published in many areas, including political and legal history and philosophy, famine, food and slavery. Recent publications include Thinking about Property: From Antiquity to the Age of Revolution (Cambridge, 2007), and Against the Death Penalty: Writings from the First Abolitionists – Giuseppe Pelli and Cesare Beccaria (2020).

• Introduction; 1. Lex Talionis; 2. Plato: punishment as reform and deterrence; 3. Retribution and revenge; 4. Jesus; 5. Thomas More; 6. The state of nature and the social contract; 7. From utility to utilitarianism; 8. Giuseppe Pelli; 9. Cesare Beccaria; 10. Postscript: British and American exceptionalism.

'A riveting excavation of the ideas and arguments that shaped early critiques of capital punishment, ranging from the first discussions of retribution and deterrence to the eventual emergence of abolitionism. Garnsey maps a fractured, surprising genealogy that reshapes our understanding of how reformist thinking about punishment was forged. Erudite, gripping, indispensable.' Philippe Audegean, Sorbonne University