New from Yale University Press:
Engines of Truth: Producing Veracity in the Victorian Courtroom, by
Wendie Ellen Schneider (Iowa State University). A description from the Press:
During the Victorian era, new laws allowed more witnesses to testify in
court cases. At the same time, an emerging cultural emphasis on
truth-telling drove the development of new ways of inhibiting perjury.
Strikingly original and drawing on a broad array of archival research,
Wendie Schneider’s examination of the Victorian courtroom charts this
period of experimentation and how its innovations shaped contemporary
trial procedure. Blending legal, social, and colonial history, she
shines new light on cross-examination, the most enduring product of this
time and the “greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of
truth.”
A few blurbs:
“This is one of the most important contributions to the study of the
Victorian legal system in a very long time, but its significance goes
far wider than that. The author has fashioned a rich cultural history
that is authoritative and transnational.”—Rohan McWilliam
“No other work has looked at nineteenth-century perjury in Britain in such a sustained way.”—Ray Cocks
More information is available
here.
