Law's imagined republic : popular politics and criminal justice in revolutionary America /

"Law's Imagined Republic shows how the American Revolution was marked by the rapid proliferation of law talk across the colonies. This legal language was both elite and popular, spanned different forms of expression from words to rituals, and included simultaneously real and imagined law....

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Wilf, Steven Robert
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Cambridge [U.K.] ; New York, N.Y. : Cambridge University Press, 2010
Series:Cambridge historical studies in American law and society
Subjects:
Online Access:Cover image
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001 496958334
003 OCoLC
005 20100805021212.0
008 100125s2010 nyu b 001 0 eng
010 |a 2010002831 
020 |a 9780521196901 (hbk.) 
020 |a 0521196906 (hbk.) 
020 |a 9780521145282 (pbk.) 
020 |a 0521145287 (pbk.) 
040 |a DLC  |c DLC  |d YDX  |d BTCTA  |d YDXCP  |d RCJ  |d BWX  |d CDX  |d UCDLL  |d UKM 
043 |a n-us--- 
049 |a VLAM 
050 0 0 |a KF9223  |b .W533 2010 
100 1 |a Wilf, Steven Robert 
245 1 0 |a Law's imagined republic :  |b popular politics and criminal justice in revolutionary America /  |c Steven Wilf 
260 |a Cambridge [U.K.] ;  |a New York, N.Y. :  |b Cambridge University Press,  |c 2010 
300 |a xii, 239 p. ;  |c 24 cm 
490 1 |a Cambridge historical studies in American law and society 
504 |a Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-231) and index 
505 0 |a Criminal law out-of-doors -- "The language of law is a vulgar tongue" -- Local justice, transatlantic justice -- The problem of punishment in an age of revolution -- The statute imagined 
520 |a "Law's Imagined Republic shows how the American Revolution was marked by the rapid proliferation of law talk across the colonies. This legal language was both elite and popular, spanned different forms of expression from words to rituals, and included simultaneously real and imagined law. Since it was employed to mobilize resistance against England, the proliferation of revolutionary legal language became intimately intertwined with politics. Drawing on a wealth of material from criminal cases, Steven Wilf reconstructs the intertextual ways Americans from the 1760s through the 1790s read law : reading one case against another and often self-consciously comparing transatlantic legal systems as they thought about how they might construct their own legal system in a new republic. What transformed extraordinary tales of crime into a political forum? How did different ways of reading or speaking about law shape our legal origins? And, ultimately, how might excavating innovative approaches to law in this formative period, which were constructed in the street as well as in the courtroom, alter our usual understanding of contemporary American legal institutions? Law's Imagined Republic tells the story of the untidy beginnings of American law"--Provided by publisher 
650 0 |a Criminal justice, Administration of  |z United States  |x History  |y 18th century 
650 0 |a Law  |x Language  |x History  |y 18th century 
830 0 |a Cambridge historical studies in American law and society 
856 4 2 |3 Cover image  |u http://assets.cambridge.org/97805211/45282/cover/9780521145282.jpg 
907 |a .b208501x 
998 |a third 
999 |c 93491 
852 |a Law Library  |b Third Floor  |h KF9223 .W533 2010  |p 33940003945795