Publisher's Synopsis
Published in 1764 and included two years later in the Index of Forbidden Books, On Crimes and Punishments is the best known work of the Italian Enlightenment. It was immediately a great success in Europe and United States, and was appreciated by characters such as Voltaire, Blackstone and Bentham. The first four U.S. Presidents were inspired by Beccaria's treatise, and America's foundational legal documents were shaped by it.In his aspiration for a more modern and just society, Beccaria demonstrates the uselessness, injustice, dangerousness and inhumanity of the death penalty and torture.The work is followed by Voltaire's A Commentary on the Book of Crimes and Punishments.
