Criminal Man [Paperback]

Cesare Lobroso (Author), Cesare Lombroso (Author), Mary Gibson (Translator), Nicole Hahn Rafter (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0822337231 | ISBN-13: 978-0822337232 | Publication Date: July 6, 2006

Cesare Lombroso is widely considered the founder of criminology. His theory of the “born” criminal dominated European and American thinking about the causes of criminal behavior during the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth. This volume offers English-language readers the first critical, scholarly translation of Lombroso’s Criminal Man, one of the most famous criminological treatises ever written. The text laid the groundwork for subsequent biological theories of crime, including contemporary genetic explanations.

Originally published in 1876, Criminal Man went through five editions during Lombroso’s lifetime. In each edition Lombroso expanded on his ideas about innate criminality and refined his method for categorizing criminal behavior. In this new translation, Mary Gibson and Nicole Hahn Rafter bring together for the first time excerpts from all five editions in order to represent the development of Lombroso’s thought and his positivistic approach to understanding criminal behavior.

In Criminal Man, Lombroso used modern Darwinian evolutionary theories to “prove” the inferiority of criminals to “honest” people, of women to men, and of blacks to whites, thereby reinforcing the prevailing politics of sexual and racial hierarchy. He was particularly interested in the physical attributes of criminals—the size of their skulls, the shape of their noses—but he also studied the criminals’ various forms of self-expression, such as letters, graffiti, drawings, and tattoos. This volume includes more than forty of Lombroso’s illustrations of the criminal body along with several photographs of his personal collection. Designed to be useful for scholars and to introduce students to Lombroso’s thought, the volume also includes an extensive introduction, notes, appendices, a glossary, and an index.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Cesare Lombroso’s Criminal Man has long been a classic of criminology. Mary Gibson and Nicole Hahn Rafter, in offering this finely annotated translation and showing the progression of Lombroso’s thought through five editions of the book, have made a great contribution to a broader understanding of this towering, yet often misrepresented, figure and his classic text. With its lucid introduction by Gibson and Rafter, and many original illustrations, this book will be a precious resource for the history of criminology and for European intellectual and social history more generally.”—David I. Kertzer, author of Prisoner of the Vatican: The Popes’ Secret Plot to Capture Rome from the New Italian State

About the Author

Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909), an internationally famous Italian physician and criminologist, wrote extensively about jurisprudence and the causes of crime. He produced more than thirty books during his lifetime.

Mary Gibson is Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her books include Born to Crime: Cesare Lombroso and the Origins of Biological Criminality. Nicole Hahn Rafter is Senior Research Fellow at Northeastern University. Her books include Creating Born Criminals. Rafter and Gibson translated Lombroso’s Criminal Woman, the Prostitute, and the Normal Woman, also published by Duke University Press.

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books (July 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822337231
• ISBN-13: 978-0822337232
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #315,773 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Criminal Man: Classic Book of Criminology, September 1, 2006

By 

Tsuyoshi (Kyoto, Japan) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Criminal Man (Paperback)

Though his theory of `the born criminal' is not likely to win many supporters today, Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), an Italian physician and criminologist, is now widely considered one of the most important founders of criminology. His once widely popular ideas about how and why some people commit crimes were very influential in the 19th century Europe and America, and this book is the first critically annotated translation of the book which still gives a chance for an intriguing read and deeper understanding of the Western culture.

Lombroso's theory is based on the idea of `the born criminal,' certain group of possibly dangerous people marked by what he called `anomalies.' According to him, certain people who have particular physical traits are more likely to commit crimes than other `normal' people, and by carefully checking the bodies and faces of the criminals, including their cranial capacities or tattoos, Lombroso established his unique theory that sounds unusual today. He insists, for instance, "Nearly all the criminals have ... thick hair and thin beard." (p. 53) Today this crude statement would never be convincing.

In short 'Criminal Man' is an analysis of the nature of crime, a pseudo-science based on empirical data. Over the five editions of `Criminal Man' Lombroso developed his theory by accumulating data, articles, photos, and even the poems and drawings by the criminals, and he developed his theory with more categories and sub-categories added to his original idea, later covering the territories of prostitution, insanity, and even botany.

[ABOUT THE EDITIONS] The original book was first published in 1876, and this one-volume edition later expanded to the fifth edition (3 volumes and 1 atlas) in 1896-97. Instead of choosing one particular edition as the basis of the English translation, editors/translators Nicole Hahn Rafter and Mary Gibson made a sensitive decision. They divided their translation into five sections - EDITION 1, EDITION 2 ... and EDITION 5. The translated book's EDITION 1 includes every chapter of the first edition of the original book except for several chapters, which are postponed until their EDITION 2 section where they appear in fuller detail. The same pattern goes on until EDITION 5. According to the translators' notes, Lombroso never eliminated the older contents, and rarely revised them, so in this way the translation could keep the substance virtually intact, but within each chapter abridgement was done because of the numbers of the examples quoted by Lombroso, which they found too many.

The translation has all prefaces by Lomroso, notes by the editors, and the list of references. The book also has very useful glossary that explains the meaning and background of such words as atavism, physiognomy, positivism, recidivism, and others.

There is a "companion piece" titled "Criminal Woman, the Prostitute, and the Normal Woman" written by Lombroso and translated by Nicole Hahn Rafter and Mary Gibson.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Obra de consulta obligatoria, July 28, 2010

By 

Juan Bircann (Santiago, República Dominicana) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Criminal Man (Paperback)

Con esta obra de Lombroso nace formalmente la Criminología (llamada entonces Antropología Criminal; el término "Criminología" surge en 1885 con la obra de Garófalo).
Como referencia histórica, y dentro de un contexto general, la obra de Lombroso no ha sido superada, más bien sus postulados han venido a ser confirmados a la luz de los más recientes conocimientos. Su clasificación de los delincuentes se mantiene vigente. De igual manera sus observaciones respecto a los rasgos distintivos de la subcultura criminal: uso del tatuaje, jerga, vanidad, sobrenombres, religiosidad y superstición, insensibilidad moral, etc.
Esta obra clásica, la primera en su género, es referencia obligatoria para el criminalista y todos aquellos interesados en la criminogénesis o etiología del delito.