Between Law and Custom: 'High' and 'Low' Legal Cultures in the Lands of the British Diaspora - The United States, Canada, Australia, and New Z

ISBN-13: 9780521792837 / Angielski / Twarda / 2002 / 578 str.

Peter Karsten

Opis

This book explores the three-way struggle between the British colonists who settled North America, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa; the British government and its U.S. and Canadian federal government successors; and the indigenous peoples of the settled regions. In the colonies, British law and popular norms clashed over a range of issues, including ready access to land, the property rights of aboriginal people, the taking of property for public purposes, and master-servant relationships. This book will greatly appeal to law professors, historians, and anyone interested in the rights of native peoples.

Recenzje

Between Law and Custom provides a more complete picture of the common law and its cultures than any other work by a long way. An important book, magisterial in sweep and clearly written, this will be a "must read" in many fields including history, colonialism, aboriginal studies, law and legal theory. It addresses the development of both custom and state law in England and its four major settler colonies (including the USA) over a 300 year time period. This 'breakthrough' book will be of enduring importance." Dr. W. Wesley Pue, Professor of Law and Nemetz Chair in Legal History, University of British Columbia

Spis treści

List of illustrations; List of tables; Introduction; Part I. Land: 1. Law versus customs; 2. Concribs, manuring, timber and sheep: landlords, tenants and reversioners; 3. 'They seem to argue that custom has made a higher law': squatters and proprietors; 4. Protecting one's prope'ty: takings, easements, nuisances and trespasses; Part II. Agreements: 5. We have an agreement; 6. Work: the formal and informal law of labour contracts; Part III. Accidents: 7. Judicial responses to negligence claims by the British diaspora, 1800–1910; 8. Beneath the iceberg's tip; 9. Further sorties into the high, middle and low legal cultures of the British diaspora with some conclusions; Cases discussed; Cast of characters; General index.