Unsound Empire

Civilization and Madness in Late-Victorian Law

Catherine L. Evans

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Hardback

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English

Yale University Press
23 November 2021

British & Irish history; Colonialism & imperialism; Politics & government; Legal history; Mental health law

A study of the internal tensions of British imperial rule told through murder and insanity trials

Unsound Empire analyzes the history of criminal responsibility in the nineteenth-century British Empire through detailed accounts of homicide cases. Catherine Evans explores changing understandings of insanity and their consequences for the principle that only intentional, sane, blameworthy acts deserved punishment. While British common law was flexible, it had a breaking point, and controversies involving responsibility and insanity challenged judges to determine how many of the emerging ideas about criminality, race, ethnology, and the mind the law could accommodate.

By: Catherine L. Evans
Imprint: Yale University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780300242744
ISBN 10: 0300242743
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 23 November 2021
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Catherine Evans is assistant professor at the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto.

Reviews for Unsound Empire: Civilization and Madness in Late-Victorian Law

Shortlisted for the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize, sponsored by the Canadian Historical Association (CHA) Shortlisted for the Stansky Book Prize, sponsored by the North American Conference on British Studies ( NACBS) Unsound Empire reconnoitres with late-Victorian jurists and medical men struggling with prisoners too dangerous to release and too mad to hang. Catherine Evans's micro-histories are strewn with eccentric characters and thick with tales that sparkle with stunning prose. -Constance Backhouse, University of Ottawa This original, bold and beautifully crafted book brings legal history, the history of medicine and imperial history into dialogue. A must-read for anyone interested in a critical history of the British Empire. -Renaud Morieux, author of The Society of Prisoners. Anglo-French Wars and Incarceration in the Eighteenth Century Deeply researched and grippingly written, Unsound Empire, demonstrates the centrality of imperial rule to the making of the common law and of legal competence to the emergence of political subjecthood, fundamentally transforming histories of law, medicine, and empire. -Rohit De, author of A People's Constitution: The Everyday Life of Law in the Indian Republic