1932

Abstract

Considered as regimes of interpellation, history and law separately and jointly observe and insist upon realities often antagonistic to distinct realities that arise from their alternate incarnation as memory and right. Because it exists at the intersection of history and law, legal history has a responsibility to resolve, or at least reveal, these cross-purposes. This essay summarizes the development of the field of legal history and reviews the origins of its current leading sector, critical historicism. Using examples from Australian Native title jurisprudence, it argues that critical historicism cannot meet its responsibilities. The essay points elsewhere, to philosophies of history that may perform better.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-021116-043949
2016-10-27
2024-10-03
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/lawsocsci/12/1/annurev-lawsocsci-021116-043949.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-021116-043949&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Assoc. Am. Law Schools (AALS) 2016. 2015–16 Directory of Law Teachers Washington, DC: Assoc. Am. Law Schools [Google Scholar]
  2. Aust. Law Reform Comm. (ALRC) 2015. Connection to country: review of the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth). ALRC Rep. 126, Aust. Law Reform Comm., Sydney, Aust. [Google Scholar]
  3. Banerjee P. 2015. Eelco Runia. Moved by the Past: Discontinuity and Historical Mutation. Am. Hist. Rev. 120:3963–64 [Google Scholar]
  4. Barker F. 1993. The Culture of Violence: Essays on Tragedy and History Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press [Google Scholar]
  5. Benjamin W. 1999. The Arcades Project transl. H Eiland, K McLaughlin Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  6. Benjamin W. 2002a. Eduard Fuchs, collector and historian. See Eiland & Jennings 2002 260–302
  7. Benjamin W. 2002b. Theological–political fragment. See Eiland & Jennings 2002 305–6
  8. Benjamin W. 2006. On the concept of history. Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 4, 1938–1940 H Eiland, MW Jennings 389–400 Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  9. Benjamin W. 2011. The life of students. Early Writings, 1910–1917 /transl. H Eiland 197–210 Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  10. Bevir M. 1994. Objectivity in history. Hist. Theory 33:3328–44 [Google Scholar]
  11. Bevir M. 1999. The Logic of the History of Ideas Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  12. Bevir M. 2011a. The Logic of the History of Ideas—then and now: The author responds. Intellect. Hist. Rev. 21:1105–19 [Google Scholar]
  13. Bevir M. 2011b. Why historical distance is not a problem. Hist. Theory 50:424–37 [Google Scholar]
  14. Blackshield T, Williams G. 2010. Australian Constitutional Law and Theory: Commentary and Materials Sydney: Fed. Press, 5th ed.. [Google Scholar]
  15. Blackstone W. 1979. Commentaries on the Laws of England: A Facsimile of the First Edition of 1765–1769 4 Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press [Google Scholar]
  16. Bodney v Bennell 2008. 249 ALR 300
  17. Boorstin DJ. 1941. Tradition and method in legal history. Harvard Law Rev. 54:3424–36 [Google Scholar]
  18. Brandwein P. 2011. Rethinking the Judicial Settlement of Reconstruction Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  19. Constable M. 2005. Just Silences: The Limits and Possibilities of Modern Law Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  20. Dorsett S, McVeigh S. 2012. Jurisdiction Abingdon, UK: Routledge [Google Scholar]
  21. Eiland H, Jennings MW. 2002. Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 3, 1935–1938 Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  22. Fasolt C. 2015. History, law, and justice: empirical method and conceptual confusion in the history of law. UC Irvine Law Rev. 5:2413–62 [Google Scholar]
  23. Genovese A, Reilly A. 2005. Turning the tide of history. Griffith Rev. 2. https://griffithreview.com/articles/turning-the-tide-of-history/ [Google Scholar]
  24. Goluboff R. 2013. Lawyers, law and the new civil rights history. Harvard Law Rev. 126:82312–35 [Google Scholar]
  25. Gordon RW. 1984. Critical legal histories. Stanford Law Rev. 36:1/257–125 [Google Scholar]
  26. Gordon RW. 1996. The past as authority and as social critic: stabilizing and destabilizing functions of history in legal argument. The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences TJ McDonald 339–78 Ann Arbor: Univ. Mich. Press [Google Scholar]
  27. Gordon RW. 1997. The arrival of critical historicism. Stanford Law Rev. 49:51023–29 [Google Scholar]
  28. Gordon RW. 2012. “Critical Legal Histories revisited”: a response. Law Soc. Inq. 37:1200–15 [Google Scholar]
  29. Hartog H. 1987. The constitution of aspiration and “the rights that belong to us all.”. J. Am. Hist. 74:31013–34 [Google Scholar]
  30. Hartog H. 1994. Snakes in Ireland: a conversation with Willard Hurst. Law Hist. Rev. 12:2370–90 [Google Scholar]
  31. Holmes OW Jr. 1881. The Common Law Boston: Little, Brown [Google Scholar]
  32. Hurst JW. 1942. Legal history: a research program. Wisc. Law Rev. 1942:3323–33 [Google Scholar]
  33. Hurst JW. 1956. Law and the Conditions of Freedom in the Nineteenth-Century United States Madison: Univ. Wisc. Press [Google Scholar]
  34. Johnson & Graham's Lessee v. McIntosh21 U.S. 543 1823.
  35. Keating P. 2011. The 10-point plan that undid the good done on native title. Sydney Morning HeraldJune 1 [Google Scholar]
  36. Kennedy D. 2002. Two globalizations of law & legal thought: 1850–1968. Suffolk Univ. Law Rev. 36:3631–79 [Google Scholar]
  37. Kennedy D. 2006. Three globalizations of law and legal thought: 1850–2000. The New Law and Economic Development: A Critical Appraisal D Trubek, A Santos 19–73 Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  38. Landauer C. 2000. Social science on a lawyer's bookshelf: Willard Hurst's Law and the Conditions of Freedom in the Nineteenth-Century United States. Law Hist. Rev. 18:159–96 [Google Scholar]
  39. Llewellyn KN. 1931. Book review: Studies in American Legal History, Richard B. Morris. Columbia Law Rev. 31:4729–32 [Google Scholar]
  40. Lyotard J-F. 1993. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge transl./ed G Bennington, B Massumi. Minneapolis: Univ. Minn. Press [Google Scholar]
  41. Mabo v Queensland (No. 2) 1992. 175 CLR 1. http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/high_ct/175clr1.html?stem=0&synonyms=0&query=∼mabo
  42. Members of the Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Community v Victoria 2002. 214 CLR 422. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2002/58.html
  43. Members of the Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Community v Victoria & Ors 1998. FCA 1606. http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/FCA/1998/1606.html?stem=0&synonyms=0&query=title%28Members%20of%20the%20Yorta%20Yorta%20Aboriginal%20Community%20and%=20Victoria%20%29
  44. Milirrpum v Nabalco and the Commonwealth 1971. 17 FLR 141
  45. Motha S. 2015. As if—law, history, ontology. UC Irvine Law Rev. 5:2327–48 [Google Scholar]
  46. Nietzsche F. 1983. On the uses and disadvantages of history for life. Untimely Meditations JP Stern, transl. RJ Hollingdale 57–123 Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  47. Nietzsche F. 2003. How the real world at last became a myth. Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ, ed. /transl. RJ Hollingdale 50–51 London: Penguin [Google Scholar]
  48. Paley R. 2014. Modern Blackstone: the king's two bodies, the Supreme Court and the president. Re-Interpreting Blackstone's Commentaries: A Seminal Text in National and International Contexts W Prest 188–97 Oxford, UK: Hart [Google Scholar]
  49. Parker KM. 2011. Common Law, History, and Democracy in America, 1790–1900: Legal Thought Before Modernism Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  50. Parker KM. 2016. Writing legal history then and now: a brief reflection. Am. J. Leg. Hist. 56:1168–78 [Google Scholar]
  51. Pether P. 1998. Principles or skeletons? Mabo and the discursive constitution of the Australian nation. Law Text Cult. 4:115–45 [Google Scholar]
  52. Pound R. 1910. Law in books and law in action. Am. Law Rev. 44:12–36 [Google Scholar]
  53. R v Steel 1834. 1 Legge 65
  54. Rabban DJ. 2013. Law's History: American Legal Thought and the Transatlantic Turn to History Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  55. Reilly A, Genovese A. 2004. Claiming the past: historical understanding in Australian native title jurisprudence. Indig. Law J. 3:19–42 [Google Scholar]
  56. Runia E. 2014. Moved by the Past: Discontinuity and Historical Mutation New York: Columbia Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  57. Scheiber HN. 1970. At the borderland of law and economic history: the contributions of Willard Hurst. Am. Hist. Rev. 75:3744–56 [Google Scholar]
  58. Tehan M. 2003. A hope disillusioned, an opportunity lost? Reflections on common law native title and ten years of the Native Title Act. Melb. Univ. Law Rev. 27:2523–71 [Google Scholar]
  59. Tomlins C. 2010. Freedom Bound: Law, Labor, and Civic Identity in Colonizing English America,1580–1865 Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  60. Tomlins C. 2011. Review essay—the consumption of history in the legal academy: science and synthesis, perils and prospects. J. Leg. Educ. 61:1139–65 [Google Scholar]
  61. Tomlins C. 2012a. After critical legal history: scope, scale, structure. Annu. Rev. Law Soc. Sci. 8:31–68 [Google Scholar]
  62. Tomlins C. 2012b. What is left of the law and society paradigm after critique? Revisiting Gordon's “Critical Legal Histories.”. Law Soc. Inq. 37:1155–66 [Google Scholar]
  63. Tomlins C. 2015a. Foreword: “Law as…” III—glossolalia: toward a minor (historical) jurisprudence. UC Irvine Law Rev. 5:2240–61 [Google Scholar]
  64. Tomlins C. 2015b. The presence and absence of legal mind: a comment on Duncan Kennedy's Three Globalizations. Law Contemp. Probl. 78:1–21–17 [Google Scholar]
  65. Unger RM. 2015. The Critical Legal Studies Movement: Another Time, A Greater Task London: Verso [Google Scholar]
  66. Valverde M. 2015. Chronotopes of Law: Jurisdiction, Scale and Governance Abingdon, UK: Routledge [Google Scholar]
  67. von Savigny FK. 2000. Of the Vocation of Our Age for Legislation and Jurisprudence North Stratford, NH: Ayer Co. [Google Scholar]
  68. Webber J. 1995. The jurisprudence of regret: the search for standards of justice in Mabo. Sydney Law Rev. 17:15–28 [Google Scholar]
  69. Welke BY. 2010. Law and the Borders of Belonging in the Long Nineteenth Century United States Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  70. Wharton F. 1884. Commentaries on Law. Philadelphia: Kay & Brother Wik Peoples v Queensland (Pastoral Leases case) (1996) 187 CLR 1. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1996/40.html
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-021116-043949
Loading
  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error