Doctrinal circulations in criminal law 1764–1914

Whereas criminal law books were rather rare before the middle of the 18th century, Beccaria’s 1764 Dei delitti e delle pene triggered the development of an enormous literature devoted to penal issues (from its philosophical foundations to the questions related to prisons) in Europe until 1914. In one century and a half, probably more than 20,000 books were published in this matter, probably one half in Germany and the other half in Italy, France, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Netherlands. Some philosophers, then the first sociologists, participated to these intellectual exchanges This paper tries to analyze different ways for measuring the circulation of these texts (translations, quotations especially in footnotes, catalogues of private or public libraries, correspondences and travels…). If the debate was clearly transnational, there were also obstacles to the diffusion of foreign books. After evaluating these linguistic or cultural obstacles and taking account of the changing contexts between the first half and the second half of the 19th century, the paper proposes three lessons about globalization and non-globalization of legal concepts during this period.

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