Monday, June 29, 2009

Curran reviews Jurists Uprooted: German-speaking Emigre Lawyers in Twentieth-century Britain

Voices Saved from Vanishing by Vivian Grosswald Curran, University of Pittsburgh School of Law is a review essay on Jurists Uprooted: German-speaking Emigre Lawyers in Twentieth-century Britain, Jack Beatson & Reinhard Zimmennann eds. (Oxford University Press, 2004). It appears in the University of Pittsburgh Law Review (2009). The abstract is too short, so here's an excerpt from the introduction:

Jurists Uprooted examines the lives of eighteen emigre lawyers and legal scholars who made their way to the United Kingdom, almost all to escape Nazism, and analyzes their impact on the development of English law….Jurists Uprooted is a work of many stories, not least of which is the heroism of Oxford University Press (OUP). Through the efforts of Kenneth Sisam, OUP came to the rescue of many legal scholars during the 1930s by providing them with financial support. And when OUP was unable to do so, Sisam took it upon himself to try to arrange for universities to bring them to England. OUP's and Sisam's generosity helped to ensure the refugees' safety, and ultimately enabled them to pursue livelihoods which permitted them to make invaluable contributions to law and scholarship.