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Books > Law > Jurisprudence & general issues > Law & society
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Peculiar Institution - America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition (Hardcover)
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Peculiar Institution - America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition (Hardcover)
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For many Europeans, the persistence of America's death penalty is a
stark reminder of American otherness. The practice of state killing
is an archaic relic, a hollow symbol that accomplishes nothing but
reflects a puritanical, punitive culture - bloodthirsty in its
pursuit of retribution. In debating capital punishment, the usual
rhetoric points to America's deviance from the western norm:
civilized abolition and barbaric retention; 'us' and 'them'. This
remarkable new study by a leading social thinker sweeps aside the
familiar story and offers a compelling interpretation of the
culture of American punishment. It shows that the same forces that
led to the death penalty's abolition in Europe once made America a
pioneer of reform. That democracy and civilization are not the
enemies of capital punishment, though liberalism and
humanitarianism are. Making sense of today's differences requires a
better understanding of American society and its punishments than
the standard rhetoric allows. Taking us deep inside the world of
capital punishment, the book offers a detailed picture of a
peculiar institution - its cultural meaning and symbolic force for
supporters and abolitionists, its place in the landscape of
American politics and attitudes to crime, its constitutional status
and the legal struggles that define it. Understanding the death
penalty requires that we understand how American society is put
together - the legacy of racial violence, the structures of social
power, and the commitment to radical, local majority rule.
Shattering current stereotypes, the book forces us to rethink our
understanding of the politics of death and of punishment in America
and beyond.
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