An Empire of Laws: Legal Pluralism in British Colonial Policy(Yale Law Library Series in Legal History and Reference)

A compelling reexamination of how Britain used law to shape its empire   For many years Britain tried to impose its own laws on the peoples it conquered, and English common law usually followed the Union Jack. But the common law became less common after Britain emerged from the Seven Years’ War (1754–63) as the world’s most powerful empire. At that point, imperial policymakers adopted a policy of legal pluralism: some colonies remained under English law, but others, including parts of India and former French territories in North America, retained their previous legal regimes.   As legal historian Christian R. Burset argues, determining whether a colony received English law depended on what kind of colony Britain wanted to create. Policymakers thought English law could turn any territory into an anglicized, commercial colony; legal pluralism, in contrast, would ensure a colony’s economic and political subordination. Britain’s turn to legal pluralism thus reflected the victory of a new vision of empire—authoritarian, extractive, and tolerant—over more assimilationist and egalitarian alternatives. Among other implications, this helps explain the American colonies’ reverence for common law: it was an expression of their equal status in the empire. This book, the first empire-wide overview of law as an instrument of policy in the eighteenth-century British Empire, offers an imaginative rethinking of the relationship between tolerance and empire.

About the Author :
Christian R. Burset is Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School. He lives in Chicago, IL, and South Bend, IN.

Review :
“[This book] captures a particularly broad scope in a precise and compactly told story, not to mention the extensive archival research the author has put into this study. . . . Burset successfully demonstrates that Britain had, in fact, a choice when introducing legal pluralism throughout its empire.”—International Journal of Maritime History “Exploring the challenges posed by British acquisitions in Quebec and India, Christian Burset’s work offers a fascinating and pathbreaking account of the origins of legal pluralism in the British Empire.”—Michael Lobban, author of Imperial Incarceration “An Empire of Laws is a must-read. Legal pluralism in the British Empire was not a given, but a choice—one that has profoundly shaped theories of law’s role in economic development.”—Amalia D. Kessler, author of Inventing American Exceptionalism: The Origins of American Adversarial Legal Culture, 1800–1877