Overview

John M. Collins presents the first comprehensive history of martial law in the early modern period. He argues that rather than being a state of exception from law, martial law was understood and practiced as one of the King's laws. Further, it was a vital component of both England's domestic and imperial legal order. It was used to quell rebellions during the Reformation, to subdue Ireland, to regulate English plantations like Jamestown, to punish spies and traitors in the English Civil War, and to build forts on Jamaica. Through outlining the history of martial law, Collins reinterprets English legal culture as dynamic, politicized, and creative, where jurists were inspired by past practices to generate new law rather than being restrained by it. This work asks that legal history once again be re-integrated into the cultural and political histories of early modern England and its empire.

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9781107469488

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Reviews

'[Collins] offers a comprehensive history of a law that has been 'hiding in plain sight', neglected, or misunderstood by generations of lawyers and historians influenced by martial law's subsequent history. The result is a rich and important study that has implications for the wider histories of empire, governance, and the nature of legal change.' Tim Stretton, Journal of Modern History 'The book is well written and follows a logical structure. ... achieves much in its wider aims of helping readers make sense of the many forms martial law took in the Anglophone world over this long and complicated period.' Andrew Hopper, The English Historical Review

'[Collins] offers a comprehensive history of a law that has been 'hiding in plain sight', neglected, or misunderstood by generations of lawyers and historians influenced by martial law's subsequent history. The result is a rich and important study that has implications for the wider histories of empire, governance, and the nature of legal change.' Tim Stretton, Journal of Modern History 'The book is well written and follows a logical structure. ... achieves much in its wider aims of helping readers make sense of the many forms martial law took in the Anglophone world over this long and complicated period.' Andrew Hopper, The English Historical Review '[Collins] offers a comprehensive history of a law that has been 'hiding in plain sight', neglected, or misunderstood by generations of lawyers and historians influenced by martial law's subsequent history. The result is a rich and important study that has implications for the wider histories of empire, governance, and the nature of legal change.' Tim Stretton, Journal of Modern History 'The book is well written and follows a logical structure. ... achieves much in its wider aims of helping readers make sense of the many forms martial law took in the Anglophone world over this long and complicated period.' Andrew Hopper, The English Historical Review

Author Information

John M. Collins is a Lecturer in History at Eastern Washington University. He studied for his PhD at the University of Virginia. He has in the past been awarded research grants from the North American Council of British Studies, the American Society for Legal History, the Huntington Library, the Clark Library, the Lilly Library, and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

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