New from the Catholic University of America Press:
The Glorious Revolution and the Continuity of Law (Dec. 2014) by
Richard S. Kay (University of Connecticut School of Law). A description from the Press:
The Glorious Revolution and the Continuity of Law explores the
relationship between law and revolution. Revolt - armed or not - is
often viewed as the overthrow of legitimate rulers. Historical
experience, however, shows that revolutions are frequently accompanied
by the invocation rather than the repudiation of law. No example is
clearer than that of the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89. At that time
the unpopular but lawful Catholic king, James II, lost his throne and
was replaced by his Protestant son-in-law and daughter, William of
Orange and Mary, with James's attempt to recapture the throne thwarted
at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland. The revolutionaries had to
negotiate two contradictory but intensely held convictions. The first
was that the essential role of law in defining and regulating the
activity of the state must be maintained. The second was that
constitutional arrangements to limit the unilateral authority of the
monarch and preserve an indispensable role for the houses of parliament
in public decision-making had to be established. In the circumstances of
1688-89, the revolutionaries could not be faithful to the second
without betraying the first. Their attempts to reconcile these
conflicting objectives involved the frequent employment of legal
rhetoric to justify their actions. In so doing, they necessarily used
the word "law" in different ways. It could denote the specific rules of
positive law; it could simply express devotion to the large political
and social values that underlay the legal system; or it could do
something in between. In 1688-89 it meant all those things to different
participants at different times. This study adds a new dimension to the
literature of the Glorious Revolution by describing, analyzing and
elaborating this central paradox: the revolutionaries tried to break the
rules of the constitution and, at the same time, be true to them.
A few blurbs:
"A first-rate history based on thorough and extensive research,
including many important original sources . . . the best account so far
of the relevant constitutional, legal, and political issues debated and
resolved during and after the Glorious Revolution." --Donald E. Wilkes,
Jr., Professor of Law, University of Georgia School of Law
"Digs deeper and more rewardingly into important aspects of the
Glorious Revolution than anything yet produced and it will be recognized
as a good argument for returning to telling legal matters that are
often overlooked in prevailing approaches." --Thomas Green, Professor
Emeritus, University of Michigan Law School
More information is available
here.
