About the book, from the publisher:
A study of the internal tensions of British imperial rule told through murder and insanity trialsCatherine Evans is assistant professor at the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto.
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?
Learn more about Unsound Empire at the Yale University Press website.
The Page 99 Test: Unsound Empire.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
