America and Europe Diverge on the Death Penalty

Abstract

This book will concentrate mainly on the evolution of capital punishment policy in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. This focus should, of course, not be understood as dismissing the importance of abolition movements in other parts of the globe, such as Central and South America. As Franklin Zimring and David Johnson (2008) have recently pointed out, Asia has been the main venue for executions in the modern era, and deserves far more scholarly attention than it has so far received. However, I believe my focus can be justified on several different grounds. First, and most arbitrarily, my own limitations: I can read and speak only German, French and English.