The literature on the Founding Fathers and the birth of the United States of America is voluminous, as is scholarship on the death penalty in America. In this book, though, John Bessler makes unique and important contributions to both subjects by demonstrating the indelible influence that an Italian philosopher – Cesare Beccaria – had both on the Founders and on anti-death-penalty discourses. The Birth of American Law builds upon Bessler's previous book, Cruel & Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders’ Eighth Amendment, by going beyond the Eighth Amendment and looking at Beccaria's influence on America's social and legal landscape more generally. Bessler demonstrates the transatlantic influence on the birth of American law, and highlights how Americans today can use Beccaria's ideas to guide the development of American law.

The Birth of American Law, which is rich in detail and meticulously researched, can be described as part biography of Beccaria, part legal history of the Founding era, and part searing indictment of capital punishment. The starting point is the writing of Beccaria's seminal treatise On Crimes and Punishment, first published in 1764. While scholars of criminology may be familiar with the text, Bessler sheds new light on the ideas contained in the treatise by documenting the personal struggles and social conditions that shaped Beccaria's thoughts and attitudes. The book then shows how and why On Crimes and Punishment made it out of Italy and across the world, where it inspired American Revolutionaries. Bessler deftly demonstrates how Beccaria had as much influence on the Founders as the likes of Thomas Paine, Montesquieu and other Enlightenment writers.

Beccaria's influence was most keenly felt by those who were tasked with developing laws relating to crime and punishment. In early America, just as in England, scores of crimes were punishable by death or nonlethal corporal punishment. Around the time that America gained independence, about two hundred crimes in England were punishable by death by virtue of what we now term the “Bloody Code.” The Founders jettisoned the Bloody Code for its brutality, and their rejection of severe executions and barbaric punishments was inspired in part by Beccaria's call for proportionate punishments. The book chronicles the development of penitentiaries and the decline of the death penalty in the Founding era, making it clear that the Founders were at best ambivalent about the death penalty, taking their cue from Beccaria, who was vehemently abolitionist. Beccaria's role in fostering anti-death-penalty agitation is celebrated and it is shown that the arguments raised in On Crimes and Punishment still ring true today. Bessler's contribution is to show how Beccaria's vision shaped the psyche of the Founders on this point, thus tying modern anti-death-penalty discourses to the American values and traditions that are usually associated with the likes of Madison, Jefferson, Adams and so on.

As an alternative to the death penalty, Beccaria advocated “perpetual slavery,” which we would today term “life without the possibility of parole.” Although many contemporary death penalty abolitionists also advocate such sentences as an alternative to capital punishment, there is also considerable antipathy to life without parole. It would be interesting to know Bessler's thoughts on whether or not Beccaria should be celebrated for endorsing such sentences. Similarly, Bessler documents Beccaria's influence on the drafting of the Second Amendment, yet there are many who rely on Beccaria to oppose the death penalty, while simultaneously ignoring Beccaria when they call for greater gun control. Beccaria's treatise certainly does not provide all the answers to how the US legal system should be framed, but Bessler highlights how the Founders were significantly influenced by his ideas.

The Birth of American Law is not confined to Beccaria's influence on penology, though, and his views on the economy, republicanism, and equality of treatment more generally also resonated with Americans of that era: “For North American colonists, a liberty-loving people seeking fair trade, a seat at the table of power, and a just say in the matter of their own taxation, Beccaria's words about tyranny and fair treatment struck an exposed nerve” (432). While many students of the Revolutionary era will be familiar with the likes of Jefferson, Franklin and Adams, and while many students of capital punishment will be familiar with Beccaria's scathing critique of the death penalty, Bessler merges these two stories into a compelling account of the beginning of the American legal order, making The Birth of American Law a must-read for anyone interested in the origins of the US legal order.