Re-interpreting Blackstone's Commentaries
Subtitle: a seminal text in national and international contexts
By: edited by Wilfrid Prest
Publisher: Hart Publishing
Published: 2014
Place of publication: Oxford; Portland, Oregon
Language: eng
Number of pages: 245
ISBN-13: 9781849465380
Subjects: Law; Philosophy
Other titles: Blackstone's Commentaries
Description: This collection explores the remarkable impact and continuing influence of William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, from the work's original publication in the 1760s down to the present. Contributions by cultural and literary scholars, and intellectual and legal historians trace the manner in which this truly seminal text has established its authority well beyond the author's native shores or his own limited lifespan. In the first section, 'Words and Visions', Kathryn Temple, Simon Stern, Cristina S Martinez and Michael Meehan discuss the Commentaries' aesthetic and literary qualities as factors contributing to the work's unique status in Anglo-American legal culture. The second group of essays traces the nature and dimensions of Blackstone's impact in various jurisdictions outside England, namely Quebec (Michel Morin), Louisiana and the United States more generally (John W Cairns and Stephen M Sheppard), North Carolina (John V Orth) and Australasia (Wilfrid Prest). Finally Horst Dippel, Paul Halliday and Ruth Paley examine aspects of Blackstone's influential constitutional and political ideas, while Jessie Allen concludes the volume with a personal account of 'Reading Blackstone in the Twenty-First Century and the Twenty-First Century through Blackstone'. This volume is a sequel to the well-received collection Blackstone and his Commentaries: Biography, Law, History (Hart Publishing, 2009)
Notes: "Derived from papers presented at a symposium convened at the University of Adelaide on 6 December 2012, together with additional chapters written after the event by John Orth and the editor."--Preface.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Blackstone's 'stutter' : the (anti) performance of the Commentaries  -- Kathryn Temple; title: William Blackstone : courtroom dramatist?  -- Simon Stern; title: Blackstone as draughtsman : picturing the law  -- Cristina S. Martinez; title: Blackstone's Commentaries : England's legal georgic?  -- Michael Meehan; title: Blackstone in the bayous : inscribing slavery in the Louisiana Digest of 1808  -- John W. Cairns; title: Legal jambalaya  -- Stephen M. Sheppard; title: Blackstone and the birth of Quebec's distinct legal culture 1765-1867  -- Michel Morin; title: Blackstone's ghost : law and legal education in North Carolina  -- John V. Orth; title: Antipodean Blackstone  -- Wilfrid Prest; title: Blackstone's king  -- Paul D. Halliday; title: Modern Blackstone : the king's two bodies, the Supreme Court and the President  -- Ruth Paley; title: Blackstone's Commentaries and the origins of modern constitutionalism  -- Horst Dippel; title: Reading Blackstone in the twenty-first century  and the twenty-first century through Blackstone -- Jessie Allen.