Unsound Empire : Civilization and Madness in Late-Victorian Law Hardback
by Catherine L. Evans
Hardback
Description
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?
Information
-
Less than 10 available - usually despatched within 24 hours
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:304 pages, 15 b-w illus.
- Publisher:Yale University Press
- Publication Date:23/11/2021
- Category:
- ISBN:9780300242744
Information
-
Less than 10 available - usually despatched within 24 hours
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:304 pages, 15 b-w illus.
- Publisher:Yale University Press
- Publication Date:23/11/2021
- Category:
- ISBN:9780300242744