An empire of laws : legal pluralism in British colonial policy / Christian R. Burset.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Burset, Christian R., author.

Series:

Yale Law Library series in legal history and reference

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Great Britain--Colonies--History--18th century.

Great Britain.

Great Britain--Colonies--Administration--History--18th century.

Legal polycentricity.

British colonies.

Colonies--Administration.

Genre:

History

Physical Description:

262 pages : some illustrations, maps ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

New Haven ; London : Yale University Press, [2023]

Summary:

"For many years, Britain tried to impose its own laws on the peoples it conquered, and English common law usually followed the Union Jack. But the common law became less common after Britain emerged from the Seven Years' War (1754-63) as the world's most powerful empire. At that point, imperial policymakers adopted a strategy of legal pluralism: some colonies remained under English law, while others, including parts of India and former French territories in North America, retained much of their previous legal regimes. As legal historian Christian R. Burset argues, determining how much English law a colony received depended on what kind of colony Britain wanted to create. Policymakers thought English law could turn any territory into an anglicized, commercial colony; legal pluralism, in contrast, would ensure a colony's economic and political subordination. Britain's turn to legal pluralism thus reflected the victory of a new vision of empire--authoritarian, extractive, and tolerant--over more assimilationist and egalitarian alternatives. Among other implications, this helps explain American colonists' reverence for the common law: it expressed and preserved their equal status in the empire. This book, the first empire-wide overview of law as an instrument of policy in the eighteenth-century British Empire, offers an imaginative rethinking of the relationship between tolerance and empire."--Dust jacket.

Contents:

Introduction

Forging a common-law empire

Experimenting with law and development

The Quebec Act and its alternatives

Varieties of pluralism in Bengal

Despotic humanitarianism and the new imperial common law

Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 171-251) and index.

ISBN:

9780300253238

0300253230

OCLC:

1375552075