Synopses & Reviews
The Grand Experiment reveals how local life and culture in selected colonies interacted with the rule of law that accompanied the British colonial project. This rich account of the incomplete implementation of the British constitution in the colonies explores themes of legal translation, local understandings, judicial biography, andlaw at the boundaries - and reveals how far colonial legal history has come during the past two decades. Contributors examine the legal cultures of colonies or former colonies in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with an occasional comparative glance at other colonial societies, such as South Africa and certain United States jurisdictions. They cover a diversity of topics, including dower, prohibition, libel law, the authority of masters on the high seas, the clash of colonial and indigenous legal regimes, circuits courts, men of law, and the extent to which British courts took note of the decisions made by courts in settler dominions. Rich in empirical detail and analytical reach, The Grand Experiment is a detailed look at the heart of the colonial legal enterprise. It will be of interest to lawyers, scholars, and students seeking to understand the relationship between British colonial legal institutions and the life and culture of the settler societies in which they took root.
Synopsis
The essays in this volume reflect the exciting new directions in which legal history in the settler colonies of the British Empire has developed. The contributors show how local life and culture in selected settlements influenced, and was influenced by, the ideology of the rule of law that accompanied the British colonial project. Exploring themes of legal translation, local understandings, judicial biography, and ?law at the boundaries, ? they examine the legal cultures of dominions in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to provide a contextual and comparative account of the ?incomplete implementation of the British constitution? in these colonies