Awards

• Joint winner of Mary Douglas Prize 2011
• Nominated for James Willard Hurst Prize 2011
• Winner of American Sociological Association Sociology of Culture Section: Mary Douglas Prize 2011
• Winner of American Sociological Association Sociology of Culture Section: Mary Douglas Prize 2011.
• Winner of Michael J. Hindelang Award 2012 (United States)

Overview

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9780674066106

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Reviews

Why does the United States, alone among Western democracies, still have the death penalty? It's not a new question, but David Garland provides fresh answers from a multilayered analysis...The title hints at the most provocative part of Garland's answer. In American history, <emphasis>the peculiar institution is slavery. Anyone who thinks its vestiges were wiped out by the Emancipation Proclamation or civil rights laws should read this book and think again. -- Kenneth J. Cooper Boston Globe 20101022 Some of [Garland's] eminently readable prose reminds me of Alexis de Tocqueville's nineteenth-century narrative about his visit to America; it has the objective, thought-provoking quality of an astute observer rather than that of an interested participant in American politics...In his view, an important reason Americans retain capital punishment is their fascination with death. While neither the glamour nor the gore that used to attend public executions remains today, he observes, capital cases still generate extensive commentary about victims' deaths and potential deaths of defendants. Great works of literature, like best-selling paperbacks, attract readers by discussing killings and revenge. Garland suggests that the popularity of the mystery story is part of the culture that keeps capital punishment alive...While he has studiously avoided stating conclusions about the morality, wisdom, or constitutionality of capital punishment, Garland's empirical analysis speaks to all three...I commend Peculiar Institution to participants in the political process. -- John Paul Stevens New York Review of Books 20101223 [A] magisterial account of the origins, the development, and the transformation of capital punishment. -- Marie Gottschalk New Republic online 20110316 [Garland] makes a convincing case that lynching is a key thread that shapes the American death penalty. Execution-night rallies, news stories that emphasize victims' families and a legal system that lets county officials and local juries set the wheels of death in motion all contain echoes of the mob. -- Rachel Proctor May Texas Observer 20110512 [Garland] aims to deepen our understanding of why we still have a death penalty when nations toward whom we feel most kindred do not. In the tradition of de Toqueville, Dickens, Chesterton and Gunnar Myrdal, Garland, who hails from the Scottish Lowlands, casts the discerning eye of the outsider on us. And to compelling result. -- Kevin Doyle America 20110815 In Peculiar Institution, David Garland brings a distinctive approach to explaining why the United States stands alone in retaining capital punishment...Instead of asking why America bucked the Western trend towards abolition, Garland sets out to discover what made abolition possible for other countries. By putting the rise and (gradual) fall of capital punishment in a broad historical and comparative perspective, he is able to develop a subtle account of the changing forms and functions of capital punishment over time and of its relationship to the formation of states...Garland's readable book is a major contribution to our understanding not only of capital punishment in America, but also of the relationship between punishment, state and society. His insistence on the applicability of a general thesis to this peculiar case, and his careful illustration of the interaction between cultural and structural variables are particularly impressive; as is his deft handling of the analogies and disanalogies between capital punishment and lynching (an image which has featured prominently in protests at [Troy] Davis's execution). Peculiar Institution opens up a large agenda for comparative research both within and beyond the United States, helping us to understand why--however widespread the criticism of Davis's execution, and however substantial the doubts about his guilt--capital punishment in America is likely to survive. -- Nicola Lacey Times Literary Supplement 20111005 How is it that the USA alone among Western societies clings to such barbarity? David Garland's Peculiar Institution--the evocation of the stain of slavery is quite deliberate--provides a deeply thoughtful and original explanation of this phenomenon. Subtle and provocative, it deserves a wide audience. -- Andrew Scull Times Literary Supplement 20111202 A magnificently thorough and even-handed book on the death penalty in modern America. -- Bradley Winterton Taipei Times 20120717

Why does the United States, alone among Western democracies, still have the death penalty? It's not a new question, but David Garland provides fresh answers from a multilayered analysis...The title hints at the most provocative part of Garland's answer. In American history, <emphasis>the peculiar institution is slavery. Anyone who thinks its vestiges were wiped out by the Emancipation Proclamation or civil rights laws should read this book and think again. -- Kenneth J. Cooper Boston Globe 20101022 Some of [Garland's] eminently readable prose reminds me of Alexis de Tocqueville's nineteenth-century narrative about his visit to America; it has the objective, thought-provoking quality of an astute observer rather than that of an interested participant in American politics...In his view, an important reason Americans retain capital punishment is their fascination with death. While neither the glamour nor the gore that used to attend public executions remains today, he observes, capital cases still generate extensive commentary about victims' deaths and potential deaths of defendants. Great works of literature, like best-selling paperbacks, attract readers by discussing killings and revenge. Garland suggests that the popularity of the mystery story is part of the culture that keeps capital punishment alive...While he has studiously avoided stating conclusions about the morality, wisdom, or constitutionality of capital punishment, Garland's empirical analysis speaks to all three...I commend Peculiar Institution to participants in the political process. -- John Paul Stevens New York Review of Books 20101223 [A] magisterial account of the origins, the development, and the transformation of capital punishment. -- Marie Gottschalk New Republic online 20110316 [Garland] makes a convincing case that lynching is a key thread that shapes the American death penalty. Execution-night rallies, news stories that emphasize victims' families and a legal system that lets county officials and local juries set the wheels of death in motion all contain echoes of the mob. -- Rachel Proctor May Texas Observer 20110512 [Garland] aims to deepen our understanding of why we still have a death penalty when nations toward whom we feel most kindred do not. In the tradition of de Toqueville, Dickens, Chesterton and Gunnar Myrdal, Garland, who hails from the Scottish Lowlands, casts the discerning eye of the outsider on us. And to compelling result. -- Kevin Doyle America 20110815 In Peculiar Institution, David Garland brings a distinctive approach to explaining why the United States stands alone in retaining capital punishment...Instead of asking why America bucked the Western trend towards abolition, Garland sets out to discover what made abolition possible for other countries. By putting the rise and (gradual) fall of capital punishment in a broad historical and comparative perspective, he is able to develop a subtle account of the changing forms and functions of capital punishment over time and of its relationship to the formation of states...Garland's readable book is a major contribution to our understanding not only of capital punishment in America, but also of the relationship between punishment, state and society. His insistence on the applicability of a general thesis to this peculiar case, and his careful illustration of the interaction between cultural and structural variables are particularly impressive; as is his deft handling of the analogies and disanalogies between capital punishment and lynching (an image which has featured prominently in protests at [Troy] Davis's execution). Peculiar Institution opens up a large agenda for comparative research both within and beyond the United States, helping us to understand why--however widespread the criticism of Davis's execution, and however substantial the doubts about his guilt--capital punishment in America is likely to survive. -- Nicola Lacey Times Literary Supplement 20111005 How is it that the USA alone among Western societies clings to such barbarity? David Garland's Peculiar Institution--the evocation of the stain of slavery is quite deliberate--provides a deeply thoughtful and original explanation of this phenomenon. Subtle and provocative, it deserves a wide audience. -- Andrew Scull Times Literary Supplement 20111202

Author Information

David Garland is Arthur T. Vanderbilt Professor of Law and Professor of Sociology at New York University.

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