Principles of Criminal Law, Jonathan Burchell : books for lawyers

The fourth edition of this monumental work, Principles of Criminal Law is distinguishable from the previous edition in length, content and also appearance. In the preface the reason for this is adeptly explained, namely that the long chapter in its predecessor (ch 2) on the evolution of the South African criminal law has been omitted. This implies that a reader who needs a fuller or more comprehensive historical survey will, unfortunately, have to refer to a previous edition of this work. The same goes for the chapter on theories of punishment in the 2005 third edition (ch 4).