Law, History, Text
Writing Ironic Legal Histories
1st Edition
Published on 10. March 2026
260 pages
978-1-040-51634-8 (ISBN)
Description
This book presents a fresh approach to the writing of legal history as an essentially textual enterprise. It argues that to write any history is to tell a story. In doing so, it appreciates the place, not just of context and contingency in the history of law, but also humanity. Law is a human creation, for which reason it accommodates both reason and romance. Absent sensibility, it makes no sense. This book accordingly tells four stories about law. A first revisits a familiar institution, the English monarchy. A second reads history through the lens of a particular author, Daniel Defoe.A third writes a history of a few hundred yards of Bristol, eighteenth century England's premier slave-port. A fourth investigates a peculiar, and hideous, fantasy. Engaging texts drawn from literature, philosophy and politics, as well as law, this work will appeal to any scholar or student interested not just in the past of law, but in its imagining and inscription.
More details
Series
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
File size
2,25 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-040-51634-8 (9781040516348)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
approx. 03/2026
1st Edition
Routledge
€211.00
Not yet published
Person
Ian Ward is Professor of Law at Newcastle University, UK.
Content
Introduction: Irony, Anecdote and Fashion; 1. The Stuff of Dreams; 2. Novel Judgments; 3. Two Days in Bristol; 4.The Laws of Witchery
