At the end of this first part of his book, Lombroso sums up the whole of
his material for a differential diagnosis between revolution and revolt.
Then follows the second part, which was written in collaboration with a
young jurist, the Veronese advocate Laschi. Here we have an historical
account of the genesis of political crime, with a description of the
earlier and more recent methods of dealing with it, both national and
international; and an attempt is made, from the standpoint gained in the
first part, to formulate juridically the principal elements of political
criminology, and to reconstruct the foundations of its penal repression.
The conclusion consists of a detailed account of the economic and
political prophylaxis of “political crime,” in which from time to
time—and more especially in the criticism of Italian parliamentary
government and party politics—Lombroso’s original modes of thought are
strikingly manifest. For the most part, however, these prophylactic
prescriptions have reference merely to co-operative associations,
insurance against unemployment, and a number of political measures of a
more or less “State-Socialist” character of no particular originality,
and derived, as it seems to me, in part from the ideas of Luigi Luzzati
(the present Minister President), and in part from those of Achille
Loria.
The chief merits of the book are not found here, but in its
historico-philosophical ideas, which in this concluding portion are but
slightly sketched, and in the masterly manner in which, with the aid of
a vast material, the foundations are laid of our knowledge of the
psychology of the rebel, whose lineaments are depicted with the truest
perception of nature and of history.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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