Rage for Order: The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, 1800–1850

by Lauren A. Benton, Lisa Ford

International law burst on the scene as a new field in the late nineteenth century. Where did it come from? Rage for Order finds the origins of international law in empires--especially in the British Empire's sprawling efforts to refashion the imperial constitution and use it to order the world in the early part of that century.



"Rage for Order is a book of exceptional range and insight. Its successes are numerous. At a time when questions of law and legalism are attracting more and more attention from historians of 19th-century Britain and its empire, but still tend to be considered within very specific contexts, its sweep and ambition are particularly welcome...Rage for Order is a book that deserves to have major implications both for international legal history, and for the history of modern imperialism."
--Alex Middleton, Reviews in History

"Rage for Order offers a fresh account of nineteenth-century global order that takes us beyond worn liberal and post-colonial narratives into a new and more adventurous terrain."
--Jens Bartelson, Australian Historical Studies

Genres: Law, History, Nonfiction

288 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2018

About the author

Lauren Benton is an American historian known for her works on the history of empires, colonial and imperial law, and the history of international law. She is the Barton M. Biggs Professor of History and Professor of Law at Yale University.

Reviews

[Resh · Rating 4 out of 5]

lowkey super interesting! the idea of extending control over people through claiming protection is crazy. but very dense read.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense, erudite, and a bit disjointed, but brilliant throughout. Benton and Ford introduce a new way to do history and a new way to look at law and the idea of international "justice."

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, if hard to follow, book on the British Empire's role in the development of the international legal order.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A scholarly read, but mercifully short, Prof. Benton does a brilliant job of describing the origins of International Law in less than two-hundred pages.

[Prabhakar Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoroughly original approach–one that takes a noted subaltern turn – is bound to make Rage for Order an instant classic in international legal scholarship. Rage for Order corrects an important oversight, even myopia, in international legal scholarship. Much of the new pro- duction of scholarship in the discipline oscillates between hagiography and the critical assess- ment of publicists. The rest seem to be writing a parallel history of international law in their region or jurisdiction. Upending such worn-out accounts, though limited to British imperialism, Rage for Order very persuasively finds convicts, abolitionists, slaves, colonial administrators and British courts as equally significant actors in the production of international law. Rage for Order is as novel as it is original in methodology and findings.