We
missed this important collection when it came out with Routledge in 2014: Legal Histories of the British Empire: Laws,engagements and legacies, edited by Shaunnagh Dorsett (University of
Technology, Sydney) and John McLaren (University of Victoria, British
Columbia). From the press:This book is a major contribution to our understanding of the role played by law(s) in the British Empire. Using a variety of interdisciplinary approaches, the authors provide in-depth analyses which shine new light on the role of law in creating the people and places of the British Empire. Ranging from the United States, through Calcutta, across Australasia to the Gold Coast, these essays seek to investigate law’s central place in the British Empire, and the role of its agents in embedding British rule and culture in colonial territories.
One of the first collections to provide a sustained engagement with the legal histories of the British Empire, in particular beyond the settler colonies, this work aims to encourage further scholarship and new approaches to the writing of the histories of that Empire. Legal Histories of the British Empire: Laws, Engagements and Legacies will be of value not only to legal scholars and graduate students, but of interest to all of those who want to know more about the laws in and of the British Empire.TOC after the jump.
Chapter One Laws, Engagements, and Legacies: the Legal Histories of the British Empire An Introduction, Shaunnagh Dorsett and John McLaren,Part I – Framing Empire: People and Institutions, Chapter Two Navigating the Scylla of Imperial Politico-Legal Aspirations and Charybdis of Colonial Micro-Politics in the British Empire: The Case of the Judges, John McLaren,Chapter Three Asserting Judicial Sovereignty: The Debate over the Abolition of Privy Council Jurisdiction in British Africa, Bonny Ibhawoh,Chapter Four Law, Culture and History: Amir Ali’s Interpretation of Islamic Tradition, Nandini Chatterjee, Chapter Five A Judicial Maverick: John Gorrie at Large in the Victorian Empire, Bridget Brereton, Part II – Laws Chapter Six Benjamin Knowles v. Rex: Judging Murder, Race and Respectability from Colonial Ghana to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, 1928-30, Stacey Hynd, Chapter Seven Inventing Extraordinary Criminality: A Study of Criminalization by the Calcutta Goondas Act, Sugata Nandi, Chapter Eight Sovereignties in Dispute: The Komagata Maru and Spectral Indigeneities, 1914, Renisa Mawani, Part III – Engagements Chapter Nine Imperial Legacies: Chartered Enterprises in Northern British America, Philip Girard Chapter Ten Understanding ‘Chinese Customs’: Sinchew rulings in the Straits Settlements, 1830s-1870s, Stephanie Po-yin Chung, Chapter Eleven Translating the Hedaya: Colonial Foundations of Islamic Law, John Strawson, Chapter Twelve Travelling Laws: Burton and the Draft Act for the Protection and Amelioration of the Aborigines 1838 (NSW), Shaunnagh Dorsett, Part IV – Legacies Chapter Thirteen Legacies of Empire: Race and Labor Contracts in the Upper Mississippi River Valley, Allison Gorsuch, Chapter Fourteen Empire on Trial: Slavery, Villeinage, and Law in Imperial Britain, Dana Rabin, Chapter Fifteen Macaulay’s India Law Reforms and Labour in the British Empire, Barry Wright, Chapter Sixteen A Slave Trade Jurisdiction: Attempts against the Slave Trade and the Making of a Space of Law (Arabo-Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, Red Sea, circa 1820-1900), Guillemette Crouzet
More information is available here.
