Cesare Beccaria

Revolutionary justice: French versus American style

In 1770, tensions were high between the American colonists and their British rulers. Anxious soldiers confronting an angry mob precipitated the Boston Massacre. Eight soldiers were then put on trial for murder. The lawyer John Adams was a strong American patriot, yet he took on the defense of the British soldiers. His purpose was explicitly […]

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The Enlightenment Vision — updated flowchart

The Enlightenment of the long 18th century was an era of awesome intellectual and cultural transformation. This Enlightenment Vision flowchart is pitched at a high level of abstraction, showing schematically how the philosophical revolution of the 17th century led to the 18th-century revolutions in science, technology, politics, and economics — which in turn led to

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The Enlightenment Vision — Flowchart

The Enlightenment of the long 18th century was an era of awesome intellectual and cultural transformation. My Enlightenment Vision flowchart [pdf] is pitched at a high level of abstraction, showing schematically how the philosophical revolution of the 17th century led to the 18th-century revolutions in science, technology, politics, and economics — which in turn led

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Death penalty in 1400s central Europe

“By the mid-fifteenth century crimes subject to the death penalty … included the following: rebellion, fraud, bigamy, incest, arson, theft, adultery, carrying off a woman against her will, blasphemy, moving signs of property boundaries, attacking someone, high treason, child murder, using dishonest weights and measures, murder, counterfeiting, rape, attempted suicide,* striking someone to death, converting

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Bibliography [EP]

[This is the Bibliography from Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault] Bibliography Abrams, M. H. et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Fifth edition, Volume II. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1986. Ayer, A. J. Language, Truth, and Logic [1936]. Dover, 1946. Ayer, A. J., editor. Logical Positivism. Free

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