Unsound Empire
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€67.99
A01=Catherine L. Evans
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australia
Author_Catherine L. Evans
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british colonies
british empire
british legal history
canada
Category1=Non-Fiction
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Category=HBLL
Category=HBTQ
Category=JP
Category=LAZ
Category=LNTM1
Category=NHD
Category=NHTQ
COP=United States
criminal responsibility
criminality
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english law
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eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnology
guilty by reason of insanity
homicide
Language_English
mental illness
murder
PA=Available
Price_€50 to €100
PS=Active
race
softlaunch
Product details
- ISBN 9780300242744
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 23 Nov 2021
- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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A study of the internal tensions of British imperial rule told through murder and insanity trials
Unsound Empire is a history of criminal responsibility in the nineteenth‑century British Empire told through detailed accounts of homicide cases across three continents. If a defendant in a murder trial was going to hang, he or she had to deserve it. Establishing the mental element of guilt—criminal responsibility—transformed state violence into law. And yet, to the consternation of officials in Britain and beyond, experts in new scientific fields posited that insanity was widespread and growing, and evolutionary theories suggested that wide swaths of humanity lacked the self‑control and understanding that common law demanded. Could it be fair to punish mentally ill or allegedly “uncivilized” people? Could British civilization survive if killers avoided the noose?
Unsound Empire is a history of criminal responsibility in the nineteenth‑century British Empire told through detailed accounts of homicide cases across three continents. If a defendant in a murder trial was going to hang, he or she had to deserve it. Establishing the mental element of guilt—criminal responsibility—transformed state violence into law. And yet, to the consternation of officials in Britain and beyond, experts in new scientific fields posited that insanity was widespread and growing, and evolutionary theories suggested that wide swaths of humanity lacked the self‑control and understanding that common law demanded. Could it be fair to punish mentally ill or allegedly “uncivilized” people? Could British civilization survive if killers avoided the noose?
Catherine Evans is assistant professor at the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto.
